SQUATTERS OBSTRUCT NAIROBI RAILWAY

Posted on 01 June 2010

The slum area around Nairobi is a huge problem to Rift Valley Railways (RVR) – and stands in the way of ambitious government plans to provide a fast, substantially upgraded commuter service. At present, trains cannot move safely at speeds greater than 20km/h.

The Nation, published in the city, quotes RVR general manager for the eastern region James Nyambari saying “the biggest headache is the dumping of garbage on the track.
People are employed almost daily to remove the trash from the railway and then wagons are used to take it away. We cannot do any useful work that way,” he said.

Sewage also overflows onto the track in some areas, making it muddy and slippery, resulting in wheel slip that could lead to an accident like the one at Mashimoni in December 2009.
Sometimes RVR has to double up locomotives because one has insufficient traction, due to slipping, to move the train. Alternatively, trains have to be split in two at Kibera station.

RVR is concerned at the possibility of a derailment affecting a train carrying dangerous substances such as liquid petroleum gas (LPG), which could set off a fire with damage of “unimaginable proportions” to houses built close to the railway and each other.

A 30-day deadline issued by the government on 21 March, requiring people to move from railway property, has come and gone, but “from what the Nation observed in Kibera on Saturday morning, the residents are not about to budge.”

Kenya Railways managing director Nduva Muli is quoted saying that a recently completed study established it will cost about $US250 million to revamp the commuter rail service in Nairobi. Of this, $200 million would be raised by issuing an infrastructure bond and the rest would come from the government’s annual budget. The design of a new line linking Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the city centre is complete, Muli told the Nation. The line is to terminate at Unit 3, the domestic departures and arrivals area.

The envisaged upgrade will include the replacement of the present rolling stock with 40 new diesel-electric multiple-unit trainsets. The “show-stoppers” to this project, Muli told the paper, are the encroachers living, working and in some cases even walking, right next to the railway, and the “loosely organised” matatu terminus at the Nairobi station.

In a statement dated 23 April, the day after the expiry of the eviction deadline, Kenyan director of Amnesty International Justus Nyang’aya asked for an extension saying: “Without proper safeguards, the proposed mass evictions will have a devastating impact on people’s access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could well create a humanitarian emergency. They will result in forced evictions, which contravene Kenya’s obligations under international human rights laws.” He estimated that as many as 50,000 people would be affected.

“While it is recognised that the government is taking important steps to upgrade the railway system, for the tens of thousands of people living in the affected area, the demolition of homes and informal businesses will be socially and economically disastrous,” he added.

He said no comprehensive resettlement or compensation plan had been made public and the government appears to have made no provision for those that will lose their livelihood if the eviction goes ahead. In terms of international human rights law, evictions should only be carried out as a last resort and only after all other feasible alternatives to eviction have been explored in genuine consultation with affected communities.

Currently, the reserve land on 100 feet of either side of the track is marked by a series of upright rail steel bars planted into the ground. Though residents are aware of this, many insist they have lived there all their lives, have built houses there and would have nowhere to go if they were to be removed.

According to press reports, all this is only half the story.
“Unfortunately, most of the land bordering the track was excised and parcelled out to individuals long ago. Most properties belonging to the corporation were expropriated by influential politicians and civil servants during the Kanu era. In fact, when, for example, Kibera and Mukuru slum-dwellers moved in to put up illegal structures right near the rail tracks, they were emboldened by the fact that bigwigs had shared out all the corporation’s lucrative land.”