Tracking Development
Attendants of Mombasa-Nairobi SGR are trained by a Chinese instructor. The railway has provided job opportunities for locals Jackline Nzula, a 33-yearold resident in Nairobi, is a mother of two young children. She used to take public bus transport to travel from Nairobi to Mombasa twice a month to visit relatives and transact business.
A one-way trip by road between Kenya’s capital and its second largest city on the coast would take her between seven to nine hours. That was before the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was completed and the passenger train service inaugurated on May 31, 2017. It now takes Nzula almost half of that time to travel the distance of 480 km.
“It now means that business deals are done faster and the economy grows. You no longer have to rent a place to sleep at night and complete your business the next day. Everything can be done on the same day,” said Nzula, who has her fingers in several business ventures.
As a small-scale fruit vendor, she buys coconuts at low prices and then returns to Nairobi to sell each coconut at a profit of 39 percent.
She also sells fish in Nairobi. “I get the fish from the coast and sell them at a good profit in Nairobi. All the profits I make are within the same day and my produce remains fresh,” she added.
Nzula said before the railway was built, she had to sell her produce at bargain prices because she could not keep it fresh after the long travel time. She explained that because of the more convenient transport, on average, she now makes a daily profit of about four times her previous amount.
“On average, I make 2,000 Kenyan shillings ($20) per week. But before the railway line was built, I would just make 500 shillings ($5) per week,” said Nzula, who added the new line has not only helped her business, but also made it easier for her and her family to visit relatives on the coast.
Job creator
According to statistics of the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development of Kenya, Nzula is among the 1 million commuters traveling on the new railway to the coast each week for different reasons.
Many long-distance bus companies are beginning to lower their fares as more and more people continue to depend on the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR, including tourists.
“On average, it only costs 700 shillings ($7) for a one-way trip using the railway compared to 1,000 shillings ($10) for road services [despite road transport costs being lowered], depending on the time of the year,” said Kimani Muchiri of Kenya Railways Corp., which manages the country’s entire railway network.
According to James Macharia, Cabinet Secretary (Minister) of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development of Kenya, the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR has provided thousands of jobs since it began operation.
“As the economy continues to grow, over 176,000 direct and indirect jobs have been created since the railway line began commercial operations one year ago,” said Macharia. “Also importantly, an additional 19,000 people worked on the entire SGR project before completion. Another 8,000 worked under sub-contractors. I am glad to say that most remained as permanent employees.”
Harris Mule, a veteran Kenyan economist, said that if corruption in Kenya is handled effectively in the coming years, the railway is a certain job generator.
“It is important to manage corruption effectively. It is the best way of seeing economic benefits. At least 1 million jobs can be created. Self-employment and business startups will crop up and different industries will emerge,” said Mule, who previously served in government as a permanent secretary of Ministry of Finance.
Mule, who is also a consultant for several universities and international think tanks, said that more than $5.2 billion worth of trade has already passed through the Mombasa-Nairobi route, creating many indirect jobs.
Julius Muia, Director General of the Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat, a government agency put in place in 2012 to oversee Kenya becoming an industrialized country by 2030, said, “Kenyan professionals have been exposed to new and exciting opportunities at various stations from Mombasa to Nairobi.”
According to him, additional technical jobs have been created as needs of the impending maintenance work on the new modernized line continues to increase.
Muia said these needs include regular repair and maintenance of the locomotives, coaches, freight wagons and the installed signaling systems.
Environmental concerns
With Kenya being a country so blessed with an abundance of wildlife, it came as no surprise that one of the major challenges to the railway has been environmental activists going to court to prevent the railway from initially being constructed.
“Even after environmental assessment feasibility studies have been done, and proved successful, many people rushed to court to oppose the historical project. This has derailed construction schedules of other routes,” said Macharia.
He added that the old railway line from the same [Mombasa-Nairobi] route was more of a threat to wildlife, especially elephants, than the current one.
“For the new Mombasa-Nairobi route, eight passages have been built to connect the two Tsavos [Tsavos East and West National Parks]. The Kenya Wildlife Service did studies to determine the efficacy of these passages as new migratory routes for elephants,” said Macharia.
“Several elephants were fitted with GPS collar transmitters to determine the effectiveness of the passages. To date, nothing has ever shown wildlife [routes] being interrupted,” he said.
While activists said the raised railway through the parks will affect animals’ routes and breeding grounds, Macharia said that some of these passages under the elevated railway, as high as 10 meters in part, have allowed animals to pass freely to their destinations.
Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks have almost 50 percent of Kenya’s elephant population of 13,000, according to last year’s census of the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Reporting from Kenya
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