Fact-Checker: Waita claim on viability of SGR way off the mark

A Standard Gauge Railway train with containerised cargo leaves the Mombasa port for Nairobi in March this year. Experts have dismissed the viability of the controversial line. [Maarufu Mohamed, Standard]

Earlier this month, President Uhuru Kenyatta failed to secure additional loans from China to complete the Naivasha-Kisumu Phase 2 of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in what was seen as a slap in the face for the government’s flagship project.

In a bid to save face, the President’s Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita sought to dismiss arguments from critics that the SGR was a drain on the country’s resources, terming it “economically naïve and in a large sense anti-development.”