KENYA REALITIES
Posted on 21 August 2009 by Railways Africa Editor
“At least 6,200 of Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) retirees will have to do without pension this financial year,” says a Nairobi press report, “after an allocation of 245 million shillings was omitted from the [transport] ministry’s vote. The building of the proposed metro network in Nairobi has been shelved, according to transport minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere, as has the construction of a line from a proposed new port at Lamu to Ethiopia and Southern Sudan. A third casualty is a line that was to be constructed to bypass Kibera, on the outskirts of the capital, where stretches of the main-line as long as a kilometre have been physically torn up by residents engaged in one or other non-railway-related protest.
Mwakwere conceded that Sh3 billion had been budgeted towards an envisaged new standard-gauge line from Mombasa through Nairobi and Uganda to Rwanda, but explained that the money had not actually been released by the Treasury, being “part of the funds meant to spur economic growth in the face of the global recession”. The sum of Sh3 billion had been mentioned during July by KRC managing director Nduva Muli, who had said the line – expected to cost Sh680 billion ($US8.5 billion), shared between the three countries – was to be finished in three years. Muli had added that plans to revamp commuter rail transport in Nairobi were progressing smoothly and that a number of studies had been completed.
Related posts:
