Let Mombasa-Malaba rail set high standards

By Ken Opalo

On Thursday, President Uhuru Kenyatta commissioned the new Mombasa-Malaba standard gauge rail.

The new railway line will go a long way in modernising transportation between Kenya’s coast and our landlocked neighbours.

The hope is that when completed, the line will go as far as Bujumbura and Juba. Kenyans, and indeed all East Africans, have reasons to rejoice in this project.

The railway line is a key infrastructural investment that will create tens of thousands of jobs as it snakes inland.

It will also lower the cost of doing business (some estimates suggest by between 60-75 per cent) by reducing transportat and logistics costs. Consumer prices at the till will no doubt go down as well.

This is a big deal. It is a shame that we took this long to add to the railway line stock that we inherited from the colonial administration. Now we have a chance to build a key transportation link to meet our own needs and which  will go a long way towards integrating the country commercially.

The Sh1.2 trillion high capacity standard gauge railway line is expected to be completed in 2017 and is designed to accommodate trains traveling at speeds of up to 120kph for passengers and 80kph for freight. It is easy to imagine the potential impact this will have on the transport system in Kenya.

Not only will rail transport be relatively safer, it will also be faster.

The project will therefore have a non-trivial impact on how our roads operate. Presently, nearly 90 per cent of goods that arrive in Mombasa are transported inland by road.

For instance, of the 12 million tonnes of cargo that arrived in Mombasa in 2012, only 1.9 million tonnes were transported on the existing rail line operated by Rift Valley Railways (.

Clearly this has to change. Moving both passengers and cargo by rail will ease the congestion on our highways and reduce the number of traffic accidents that consume an obscene number of Kenyans yearly.

This is President Kenyatta’s first major infrastructure undertaking, and will no doubt be a pillar of his legacy.

As such, the president must ensure the project sets the tone and standards for future infrastructure projects, especially those under the Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET).

If we get this project right and complete it within budget and on schedule, it will provide a big boost to our national ego with regard to our ability to undertake big infrastructure projects.

Yes, a Chinese company will construct the railway line, but our leadership must keep the company on a tight leash to ensure costs do not balloon unnecessarily and the project is completed on time.

Of course this is easier said than done. Throughout our history we have had public works projects commissioned by the highest offices in the land left to mid-level bureaucrats who turned them into their cash cows.

Projects were then subjected to delay after delay, leading to the government being subjected to fines and penalties by contractors. Needless to say, the same bureaucrats got their cut from some of these fines and penalties.

This must never happen with the Mombasa-Malaba rail project. The project timeline is tight and will require close supervision from above.

I hope the president has in place a competent team that will hold the feet of the Chinese contractor to the fire to guarantee timely completion in 2017.

 The success of the project will bring more than mere economic benefits.

It will also be proof of our ability as a people to take charge of our economic destiny and plan for and invest in the long-term development of our country.

The more we design and implement grand projects like the Thika Superhighway, the Mombasa-Malaba rail and LAPSSET, the more Kenyans will feel empowered to dream even bigger.

Success will undoubtedly breed more success.

Regardless of whether they voted for the man or not, most Kenyans want Uhuru to succeed in his attempts to transform the socio-economic landscape of the country. With this in mind, it will be particularly important for Uhuru to ensure that the project succeeds without corruption scandals and undue delay.

Kenyans desperately need proof that we can do great things in the spirit of public service for the betterment of our people.

The writer is a PhD candidate at Stanford University and a partner at IPRE Group