First cross-Kenya... then cross-Africa!
Posted: 02 Jan 2011, 11:33
Excerpts from an article entitled The year of big infrastructure projects in Kenya's Saturday Nation, 01 January 2011, p 11. Much of the article is about new roads within Kenya, but there area a few interesting snippets on railway projects.
The year 2011 will mark another milestone for the government as some big projects are expected to be commissioned...
Transport Minister Amos Kimunya has promised that the ground-breaking for the Lamu Port project will be done by mid this year...
Connectivity to the proposed Lamu port will be by a super-highway and two railway lines: Lamu-Juba and Nairobi-Addis Ababa...
This will contribute to regional integration of transport network... as the longer term plan is to provide a link between the North-South and East-West transport corridors.
"This will facilitate cultural exchange besides the possible future connection of the Lamu-Juba Railway to Douala in Cameroon to form the Great Equatorial land bridge," states the railway master plan that will eventually link the East and the West. In the construction, the estimated cost for a single line would be Sh 135 million (USD 1.8 million) per kilometre while the double line would cost Sh 240 million (USD 3.2 million) per kilometre.
It is hoped that the Mombasa-Kisumu-Malaba double line with an extension to Kampala, Kigali, Bujumbura, Kisangani, covering a total of 1,400 kms will be completed by 2016 at an estimated cost of Sh 337.5 billion (USD 4.5 billion).
Also projected to be completed by the same year is the Rongai-Lokichogio-Juba single line covering 1,000 kms at a cost of Sh 135 billion (USD 1.8 billion).
The Lamu-Lokichogio-Juba single line covering 1,600 km at a cost of Sh 225 billion (USD 3 billion) is projected to be completed by 2020. Later there will be the Lamu-Douala double line connection covering 4,500 km to cost an estimated Sh 1.08 trillion (USD 14.4 billion). This is a long-term project, probably to be completed by the year 2030.
The Nairobi-Moyale-Addis Ababa-Djibouti single line covering 700 km is projected to cost Sh 97.5 billion (USD 1.3 billion) and is expected to be completed in 2020.