Traveling to Mombasa is now a great adventure as Kenyans from the city enjoy going through the celebrated Tsavo Game Park as they enjoy a taste of what it feels like being a local tourist thanks to the Standard Guage Railway.
However, in the midst of this great addition to the Kenyan traveler, the staff working under the Chinese bosses are going through anguish in their quest to make ends meet.
An investigation by the Sunday Standard has revealed a great deal of discrimination and neo-colonialism that the Kenyan workers are facing from their Asian bosses.
First, the Kenyan employees do not share tables at their staff restaurant. Chinese staff would never sit on the same table with Kenyans and Kenyans are not expected to join their tables either.
“You cannot board a van that drops us in the evening even if there’s only one Chinese on board. You will have to wait,” he says.
It is also interesting to note priveledges like smoking and taking phone calls while on the locomotives are a preserve of the Chinese alone, but if any Kenyan worker is spotted doing the same that amounts to a crime.
Kenyans drivers have also not been in charge and only one of them has managed to take charge of the 472-kilometers just once which was during the project launch, Chinese have been running the show since then.
“We just sit at the back and watch. There is no actual transfer of skills that is happening here,” an assistant locomotive driver who has been with the SGR for over a year now told the Sunday Standard.
“We cannot even do troubleshooting since everything is in Chinese,” he added.
However, despite sharing their concerns with Kenya Railway MD, Mr Atanas Maina, the employees have not received help since they were told to be grateful that they have a job.