A section of leaders from Busia County have rejected the planned construction of a Standard Gauge Railway port in the lakeside town of Kisumu.
According to the leaders, building the port in Kisumu will reduce the border towns of Busia and Malaba to ghost towns with little activity.
The leaders who included former gubernatorial aspirant Vincent Sidai, Women Representative Florence Mutua and Teso North MP Oku Kaunya said the government plans to have all inland port services handled in Kisumu, adding that it will relegate Busia and Malaba towns into transit-only points.
The leaders who were speaking at St Thomas ACK Church during a fundraiser in Katakwa said the move will undermine business at the two border towns.
"This means we shall have no business in Malaba and Busia. It is very unfair. Malaba and Busia are big border towns. We don’t want to see trains just pass with goods," Sidai said as quoted by Radio Jambo.
He said there are thousands of jobless youth in Busia county, and transferring all port activities to Kisumu will spiral unemployment in the border town.
Busia and Malaba are two busy border towns as they act as entry and exit points to landlocked countries in East and Central Africa including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.