Chinese workers to leave as Kenya takes full SGR operations

Chinese nationals who are still working for the Standard Gauge Railway are set to exit by December as the Kenyan government takes over full operations.

Kenya Railways managing director Phillip Mainga on Tuesday said the government has taken over the operations of SGR by almost 100 per cent.

Mainga said the number of Chinese operating and working with the SGR has tremendously gone down.

“That means localisation and enabling our own young people to work with us, creating talents and transfer of skills has been successfully implemented,” the MD said.

He addressed the press during the SGR’s eighth year anniversary themed, ‘Celebrating safe operations of Madaraka express’ at the SGR’s Nairobi terminus in Syokimau on Tuesday.

The SGR Nairobi terminus is the passengers’ service entry and exit from both Nairobi to Mombasa cities and back, alongside Nairobi and Suswa.

“We have about four to five months. By December, we will take over completely and the remaining Chinese staff will exit. That’s one of the key things we pride ourselves in on the eighth anniversary,” Mainga said.

He said as Kenya Railways, they were proud to say they have been able to operate successfully, manage SGR successfully and safely without any major incidents within the eight years.

He said the operations had dynamically grown.

“We have experienced major growth in our cargo movements as well as our passenger numbers. We also brought additional equipment including 300 new wagons to SGR,” Mainga said.

The official said they had introduced a premium class which is one of their best passenger service coaches.

He said they had grown their business especially in Naivasha where people thought was dormant.

“But now, we are moving about five trains every day to Naivasha and connecting cargo to Meter Gauge Railway in Naivasha,” Mainga said.

The managing director noted that they had moved from seven- eight trains to around 10 trains per day, at times operating 11–12 trains. But, an average of eight–nine trains per day, something that never happened before.

He said they will this year exceed the previous year’s performance in cargo service by a million tonnes which is about 30 per cent growth.

Mainga said for passenger services, they will grow with about 200,000–300,000 more passengers hitting about 2.6 million passengers this year.

“So, the SGR’s performance is exceptional. We have looked at our contribution as an infrastructure in this country. Currently, we are contributing about two – three per cent to this country’s GDP. Today, we run commuter passenger service about four and half hours with a maximum of five hours,” Mainga said.

He said it takes only eight hours for goods to move from Mombasa to Nairobi as compared to previous cases where it took 24–36 hours to move goods between the two cities by road.

“That’s the efficiency that has grown which dynamically changed the way our manufacturing industries and logistics companies perform as well as more job creations,” Mainga said.

The managing director said they had brought in about 20 refrigerated containers.

“We are now able to transport perishable goods from Nairobi to Mombasa and by sea. These include flowers, avocados, meat, hides and skins, etc transported in cargo containers that go to about eight degrees temperatures. The freezers help us transport the goods to Europe and Asia. We target to hit seven million tonnes of cargo this year,” he said.

He said they will launch connectivity between SGR Miritini to the island by the end of this month, latest July. The line has been completed.

Mainga said the new connection will allow for seamless movement from Nairobi to Mombasa island without looking for taxi, matatus, boda boda, etc.

“Our passengers will be safely moved. We have seen a growth in tourism and opened new stations of our operations. Voi’s performance is the best receiving high number of tourists,” he said.

Mainga said they were also transporting passengers to Maasai Mara through Suswa every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Kenya Railways Board chairman Abdi Bare said SGR offers efficient, safe and high capacity transport, which is part of their objectives as Kenya Railways management.

“We move to the equivalent of 120 buses, about 7,250 passengers each day, and about 120 feet containers that is equivalent to 1,000 containers a day. If you have to put them back to the road, you will have a traffic jam between Nairobi and Mombasa, 1,000 trailers on the road,” Abdi said.