NEW STANDARD GAUGE RAILWAY MAKES ADVANCES
(Posted 04th May 2015)
Information coming in from Kenya indicates that about 40 kilometres of the new Standard Gauge Railway, in short SGR, is already complete after work started in earnest some four months ago. A further 431 kilometres however need to be finished if the new Chinese financed railway line is to reach Nairobi by 2017, the deadline set for completion of the first section which will eventually extend all the way to Kigali / Rwanda.
The second stretch, from Nairobi to the border with Uganda, will only see construction commence when the Mombasa to Nairobi line is complete. It is the China Road and Bridge Construction company which holds the main contract for the railway. No information however is coming out of Nairobi’s government circles about the plans to construct a railway from the new port of Lamu to connect the Kenyan hinterland and eventually offer through two branchlines a connection to Addis Ababa and to Juba / South Sudan. The latter, deeply divided by internal conflict between former allies, has for all intent and purpose ran out of money and is unlikely at this stage to finance the domestic section of either the LAPSSET railway line of the planned link from Gulu and Nimule at the Ugandan border to Juba.
Meanwhile has Uganda made progress in securing project finance from China to commence construction of their own new SGR line from Malaba, the border point with Kenya, to connect Kampala and then move towards the border with Rwanda. Another presently dormant line, from Kampala to Kasese near the border with Congo, is also due to be upgraded to SGR standards from the present narrow gauge. Again, no information could be obtained from Kigali on the progress of land acquisition for the new railway line, project financing or the commencement date for construction.
