A Chinese firm that has been running the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has surrendered more functions to Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) ahead of the full handover May 2022.
nitially, Kenya Railways was only tasked with handling ticketing, security, and fuelling functions that were handed to it in March 2021. This was done in accordance with the contract entered between the two parties.
However, the Chinese firm, Africa Star Railway Operation Company (AfriStar), which has been at the centre of controversies over ownership, has surrendered the loading and offloading of the SGR passenger and cargo trains to Kenya Railways as part of a deal to fully offload the running of the multi-billion Chinese-funded project to Kenya.“The corporation (Kenya Railway) has now assumed the loading and offloading functions from Africa Star Railway Operation Company, and in terms of percentages, we can say that we are now at 60 per cent,” KRC Managing Director, Philip Mainga, stated.
nage the ticketing system and software and hardware functions of the SGR. However, in 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta-led government entered another deal to take over some of the functions by May 2022. This decision was informed by reports that the payments to the operator were unsustainable.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the country spends an average of Ksh1 billion per month on the Nairobi – Mombasa railway line.
With the recent inflation adjustments and surge in oil prices, lubricants, loading, and unloading, maintenance, and management, this cost is projected to hit Ksh1.8 billion per month.