By GATU MBARIA
The ongoing hullabaloo over the planned construction of a standard gauge railway (SGR) from Mombasa to Malaba is not without precedence in both lunacy and squabbles. The only difference is the hundred years in-between.
The most avowed bashers of the SGR project are fairly well exposed and will most likely have browsed or at least heard of Charles Miller’s 1971 sensational publication, The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism. Published over four decades ago, Miller’s book tells of persons in high places back in England who were completely antagonistic to the vision of opening up the East African region.
These elements went out of their way to fight the Kenya-Uganda Railway project uncannily yet without quite declaring their actual interests. When history was eventually written, it emerged that what the naysayers claimed to be for the benefit of tax payers’ was actually not true. The railway demagogues of the day were driven by other extraneous interests as it is now known.
Now, one of the most profound lessons from the saga surrounding the construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway (or ‘Lunatic Express’, as it was called) in the dying days of the 1800s, is that a keen nose will always pick out the smell of a rat in the opposition of projects of such magnitude and significance. And that rat is most likely of political species and self-serving in character.
When the Conservative Party of England spelt out its plans for the Kenya-Uganda railway in 1894, it came under intense attack by Liberals, with Henry Labouchere, a wealthy, radical member of British Parliament and publisher, dismissing the grand project as a “gigantic folly.” In a famous poem quoted numerously aforehand, Labouchere cast aspersions saying; “what it will cost, no words can express…where it is going, nobody knows, what the use of it is; no one can conjecture…it is clearly naught but a lunatic line.”
There is evidence that Labouchere, a bull-in-a China-shop fellow who lacked sufficient regard for diplomatic virtues used the ‘Lunatic Express’ project to extend his opposition for the Conservative Government. He had worked tirelessly to dislodge it between 1886 and 1892.
Conservatives out of power would earn him a cabinet position. But even after the Liberals assumed power, this did not come to pass. Earlier on the man had insulted the British royal family and Queen Victoria, who had veto power on such appointments, could certainly not have such a rogue with plebeian excesses in cabinet. But Joseph Chamberlain, Liberal politician and statesman, nevertheless, had a different way of looking at the railway project.
Taking a prophetic stand, Chamberlain ruled out the possibility of Britain stepping away from what he believed was its “manifest destiny”. He argued that if Britain failed to build the railway, other European countries would. This, to Chamberlain, would leave Britain with a diminished reputation, as a “cowardly, weak and poor country”. Since time does not change certain human circumstances, one needs to appreciate that the original strategic goal the British had for investing in the railway was to help protect the source of River Nile from Germans, French or the Belgians.
Their view then was that stopping the latter from tampering with Lake Victoria would enable them secure the Suez Canal and, by extension, the passage to India. Well, geopolitical realignments may have changed some realities of the day, but certainly not all.
In his numerous statements in the media, Nandi legislator Alfred Keter and Co has pointed out that it is not the railway project he and his supporters are opposed to. But it has also emerged that the figure of Sh1.3 trillion that is constantly flagged to denounce the project as a nefarious mega gravy train might be inaccurate.
The Government has denounced the figure with the Transport Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau wondering where the Sh1.3 trillion figure came from. Kamau has recently insisted to the media that the line between Mombasa and Nairobi will cost Sh327 billion. He also said that tenders for the other section have not been issued.
But can we believe the cabinet secretary or the Government that Kamau serves? We can choose not to but, in the same breath, we must not believe those who say the costs have escalated to Sh1.3 trillion. Let investigators lift the veils so that Kenyans know the truth. We must not lose sight of what we are about to gain as a country once the grand project is completed. We should remember that we have competitors in the region who have been capturing some of the freight entering or leaving the region as we engaged in national dialogue on non-issues.
In its Strategic Plan (2012-2017), the Kenya Railways avers that Kenya must engage the speed gear in the implementation of a series of infrastructure projects so as “to leverage its geo-strategic location as the regional economic and commercial hub”.
It includes building a standard gauge rail line from Mombasa to Malaba. Even after investigations are concluded, the debate is likely to continue. Again, one can draw parallels with the fact that severe criticisms of the decision to invest in the ‘Lunatic Express’ did not disappear throughout the five years the rail line was under construction.
We also need to know that initially, the Brits had planned to spend £3 million on the railway but by the time George Whitehouse, the Chief Engineer, wrote to Lord Salisbury, the then British Prime Minister to announce that the railway had reached Port Florence (Kisumu), the cost had escalated to £5 million.
When the actual construction commences, officials and board members of the Kenya Railways will need to grow a thicker skin, because we are likely to see all manner of doomsday prophets and scenarios being painted by people who will never tell us what their true intentions are.
The writer is a land use planner.
