A Chinese firm running the Standard Gauge Railway has tried to bind its local employees to a code of secrecy, even as the Kenya Railways defended the Sh1 billion monthly expenses.

China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), which has been rocked by racism claims, last month asked local staff to sign secrecy agreements to prevents them from taking pictures and posting them on social media or sharing them with other media outlets.

“One should not post negative articles or writings or videos or photos on social media or Facebook or YouTube and etc involving SGR operations,” a copy of the secrecy agreement seen by The Standard reads in part. This comes at a time when the CRBC has been rocked by claims of open discrimination of local staff.

Kenya Railways has come out to explain the make-up of the contract that condemned Kenyans to pay the Chinese firm Sh1 billion a month to operate the new railway.

Yesterday, the Kenya Railways board took charge of the ongoing investigations into racism claims that have rocked the Chinese firm behind the walls of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), on a day it emerged that Kenyan staff working at the facility had been asked to sign secrecy agreements. Staff in Mombasa received the letters of the secrecy agreements last week.