Reports from Business Daily, claim private contractors will now finance the upgrade of the old metre gauge railway (MGR) between Naivasha county and the Malaba border.
According to the Transport Secretary; James Macharia, the private sector will also fund the construction of a new line which will connect to the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) at a total estimated cost of 21 billion Kenyan Shillings.
The partnership contract between the public sector and private sector, will help the government avoid borrowing more loans, while making sure that there is a reliable railway connection between Naivasha and the Ugandan border for onward connection to Kampala.
Kenya dropped its bid to extend the SGR to Kisumu and later on to the Ugandan border, after it failed to secure a multi-billion Kenyan shilling loan from China, who already funded the first and second phases of the new SGR railway line.
Mr. Macharia on Wednesday April 8th 2019, said the government’s priority now, is to upgrade the old metre gauge railway and connect it to the SGR through the construction of a new road and rail link from Maai Mahiu to the Naivasha MGR station.
He also added that the “Private sector would be much faster because you know it is the financing agreements that take longer but if you have ready funding from the private sector, then we just engage them within our existing Public Private Partnership arrangements. We concluded the deal for the expressway from Mombasa in two months so it is possible,”.
Upgrading the old Naivasha-Nakuru-Eldoret-Malaba line will cost an estimated $150 million (15 billion Kenyan Shillings), while construction of the Mai Mahiu connection will cost about $60 million (6 billion Kenyan Shillings).
The construction and upgrade of the connection is expected to start in the next three months.
Transporters will move truck cargo through the Maai Mahiu–Narok road to the Naivasha MGR station in the meantime, before the completion of the 43-kilometre railway line between the old and the new railway stations.
The upgrade and construction of the connection is expected to start by about August 2019, in time for the planned launch of the Nairobi-Naivasha SGR line.
There have been concerns that the Mombasa to Naivasha SGR which costs an estimated 477 billion Kenyan Shillings, will not be cost effective, if it is not connected to Kampala which depends heavily on the Mombasa Port for its importation needs.
The Kenyan Government’s focus on private sector funding, is evidence of Kenya’s shift in approach for mega infrastructure funding which has countless times been blamed for the nation’s huge debt pile.
In April 2019, a Kenyan delegation in Beijing attending the Belt and Road Forum returned with disappointing news, after having failed to collect more funds, as its plans to secure the billions needed to complete the SGR to Kisumu, hit obstacles.
