ODM leader Raila Odinga. [Photo/ mwakilishi.com]
With less than a week before President Uhuru Kenyatta officially launches the Standard Gauge Railway, NASA flag-bearer Raila Odinga is already looking for bad things to say about the project, which nearly all Kenyans agree is a major achievement by the Jubilee administration. The ODM leader claims that the SGR was a project of the Grand Coalition government, of which Raila served as prime minister — with Mwai Kibaki as president. The truth is that the Uhuru Kenyatta administration oversaw the issuing of contracts for the construction of the railway line between Nairobi and Mombasa and was involved in all the other work until completion. President Kenyatta even went to China to follow up with the process. If Raila did anything with regards to the SGR project, it’s negligible and does not even reach the point of the initial paperwork. In fact, when the construction started, he was part of those fighting to derail it over unsubstantiated claims of not following tendering rules. After realizing that Kenyans were not buying his claim of being part of the historic project, which is scheduled to be launched on Wednesday, Raila has now alleged that there was corruption when giving out the tenders. He has not provided any evidence to back up his claims, which can’t stand any logical discourse. Anyone who knows Raila well doesn’t find this surprising. The former prime minister has also accused the Jubilee administration of borrowing ‘too much’. He fails to tell Kenyans that the borrowed funds have been used for various development projects, which will lead to economic growth of the country in the long term. There is no way, even in many decades to come, the Kenyan government would be able to construct a project such as the SGR without borrowing. That is the reality. The Standard Gauge Railway has been constructed at a cost of Sh327 billion, whose funding President Kenyatta secured from China. It was complicated 18 months ahead of time. The SGR train will provide a safer and cheaper means of transport between the country’s two biggest cities. A one-way passenger ticket on the economy class is expected to cost Sh900, about half the current price of bus fare and the journey will take just 4 hours.