Kenyans could have gotten a raw deal with the much hyped Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) if behaviour by those involved in the project is anything to go by.
With just a year to completion, officials have apparently been skipping trade conferences of late to avoid answering questions.
According to the Economist in an article titled ‘Puffed Out’, not only are tariffs and rates undecided, but it is not even clear who will run the railway.
A Chinese firm is building the SGR roughly alongside the route of the old track.
The ambitious Kenyan project is unlike the old line, which is on a 1,067mm gauge, as it is built to a modern “standard gauge” (1,435mm), which ought to increase capacity. The trains speeds will max at 80KPH.
The economist adds, “Travellers on the ancient British-era passenger trains, which run three times a week from Nairobi to Mombasa, now have their view of the elephants of Tsavo National Park impeded by an enormous embankment for the new line. The idea is that it will carry as much as half of the cargo unloaded at the port of Mombasa, or about ten times as much as the current railway shifts.”
The SGR is costing Kenya about $4 billion, mostly funded by a loan from the Chinese ExIm Bank, but how it will be repaid is unclear.
“Could this be because the new railway is a dud investment? Its fastest trains will do a fairly mediocre 80kph. Much as with the old railway, parts of the new line will be single-track, forcing trains to stop, often for hours, to let others pass. Most absurdly, it is built to a lower standard of load-bearing than most other new freight railways. Some fret it may not be possible to load four full containers onto each wagon, as is done on other new lines,” the publication says.
“They’re getting a third-rate railway for the cost of a very expensive one,” says a consultant.
Repaying the loans taken out to build the line will require hefty fees or huge volumes of traffic. But truckers—who now handle more than 95% of the freight moved from Mombasa port—will compete fiercely on price, and shipping companies may look for other ports if levies rise.
The Economist opines that rehabilitating the older line might have cost just 5% as much as building a new one on a new right of way, reckons Pierre Pozzo di Borgo of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank. But efforts to mend rather than buy have generally not gone well either.
Since the 1990s many African railways have been handed over to private concessions to boost investment and improve management. Kenya handed over to Rift Valley Railways (RVR) but the reality has been disappointing.
If these fears become reality, then it means that Kenyans will have borne the burden of building a railway line that would best have been rehabilitated or altogether avoided the cost.
The progress on the SGR has been hailed as satisfactory and only time will tell if it was a wise investment for Kenyans.