The planned extension of the Standard Gauge Railway from Naivasha to Malaba is on course, Kenya railways has said.
Kenya Railways MD Philip Mainga told the Star they have for the last three months been engaging stakeholders in areas where the line will traverse.
The line will run from Naivasha to Malaba passing through Narok, Bomet, Kericho, Nyamira and Kisumu counties.
The 475-kilometre line is estimated to cost Sh648 billion.
“We have been engaging stakeholders for the past two to three months in the whole line from Naivasha, Narok to Malaba,” Mainga said in phone interview.
Mainga said the number of projects affected persons is yet to be established but a final report is expected next month.
Mainga said once the report is out, they will wait for approval before engaging the National Land Commission.
It is expected that the project will improve economic fortunes of the counties it will traverse through.
Last year, Kenya hosted a joint meeting on SGR at Mombasa attended by representatives from Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and South Sudan the agenda was to find ways to extend SGR beyond Naivasha to promote regional trade.
The Mombasa-Nairobi SGR line, completed in 2017, was built as the first phase at an estimated cost of Sh327 billion, before the project was extended to Suswa (Naivasha).
The China Road and Bridge Corporation, which was behind the construction and operations, has so far transferred more than 90 per cent of the operations of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR to Kenya Railways Corporation.
In the past five years, the SGR passenger service, christened ‘Madaraka Express’, has moved more than 10 million people between Nairobi and Mombasa, official data shows, standing out as the biggest public transport mode between the two cities.
SGR has generated in excess of Sh11 billion in revenue, data by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicates.
“The number of passengers via SGR rose by 14.1 per cent from 2,392 in 2022 to 2,729 in 2023, partly due to the increased use of SGR during the holiday seasons,” KNBS said in its Economic Survey 2024.
The China-backed SGR investment has also revived economic activities in small towns between Nairobi and Mombasa, including Emali, Kibwezi, Mtito Andei, Voi and Mariakani.
Kenya Railways in its 2023 –
2027 Strategic Plan has outlined a
number of objectives.
