Damaris Mutinda starts her day in a room fitted with big screens from which managers of the Standard Gauge Railways monitor every step the trains make as they haul loads of goods and people shuttling to and from the Mombasa port.
She is the only woman in a pool of 20 staff at the dispatch centre, who give timely updates to train drivers as the trains approach junctions or tunnels.
Their mission is to ensure the safety of passengers and goods moving in the 12 trains on average that take daily trips between the two mega economic hubs, which now extends to the Suswa station, too.
Apart from speaking fluent Mandarin (Chinese lingua), Damaris can give locomotive drivers the greenlight, tell their location and change tracks for them, while ensuring the tracks are in good condition for trains to run on.
In short, she is among the team of local experts responsible for the safety of all personnel operating the train, the passengers as well as the goods.
In the room, and like many SGR terminals, you can barely spot the Chinese nationals who dotted every corner of the railways operation premises at the onset of SGR operations in Kenya.
Reason? Africa Star Railways Company, better known as Afristar, is preparing to hand over full operations of the SGR to Kenya Railways as the eight-year deal comes to a close.
TRANSITION TIME
The Afristar-Kenya Railways SGR operations deal is expiring in about a year.
The development has triggered a focus on whether Kenya has attained the skills and capacity to run the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) legacy project.
Damaris believes the trains would be in safe hands as they have learned the ropes of running the SGR. The railway is among the signature projects that tell the story of “60 years of China-Kenya relations for a community of shared future”.
“We can do the work,” she told this writer, adding that her journey at Afristar began as a track and signal operator before she was promoted to dispatch centre.
“I feel proud to work in such a big transport company. You don’t come in as a dispatcher but as an assistant. As long as you are willing to learn, you rise to bigger roles,” Damaris said.
On November 18, 2013, Kenya’s then-President Uhuru Kenyatta said he had no doubt that with China’s bilateral support, Kenya would build a world-class railway network.
In 2017, less than three years later, what he termed a historic milestone came to be as the inaugural cargo train roared from Mombasa’s Port Reitz to Nairobi.
The next day, the President and a host of dignitaries took the maiden passenger train to Mombasa from the Nairobi terminus.
Later in September 2015, the government entered into another agreement for SGR to extend to Naivasha. President William Ruto, then as Deputy President, was present.
Central in Uhuru’s call to China Road and Bridges Company was that it trains and employs many youths to ensure the project continues after it is handed over by the Chinese experts.
“My government and that of China, together with contractors, must pool resources to train skilled youth who will manage and maintain the modern railway system,” Uhuru said.
We have seen a tremendous experience, where our own are taking full control of all the operations of the SGR. We have Kenyans operating trains without the supervision of the Chinese expatriates
SKILLS TEST
Nothing could come close to testing the local skills capacity than the imminent exit of the Chinese expatriates.
For the Chinese operator (Afristar), Kenyans are now able to run the train fully, save for a few areas that still require high-level expertise.
“We have staff members who Chinese expatriates have trained in the railways sector,” Afristar communications officer Nelson Asienwa said.
“They are from different departments. Most of the staff have been transited to Kenya Railways.”
For long, Concilia Owire has been the Kenyan face of the Standard Gauge Railway, thanks to the media spotlight on her as the first female locomotive driver in the country. Not anymore.
Years later, passenger service, track, locomotive and rolling stock workshops have been fully transferred, while other specialisations have been partially transferred, Asienwa said.
“We have seen a tremendous experience, where our own are taking full control of all the operations of the SGR,” he said.
“We have Kenyans operating trains without the supervision of the Chinese expatriates.”
Data shows that Afristar’s 789-strong workforce is largely Kenyan. A total of 1,168 staffers have so far been transferred to Kenya Railways.
“Currently, we can maintain, repair and overhaul signal equipment used in SGR without having to depend on the experts from China,” Judith Wanzila, an officer at the track and signal department, said.
Afristar and Kenya Railways partners with academic institutions in China and Kenya to train the staffs on various aspects of railway technology.
Asienwa said some Afristar staffers underwent months of railway technology mastery and are now training their colleagues on the skills.
A training department conducts in-service lessons (refresher) for various workers, measures praised for the 2,588 days of no incidents (safe days) in the SGR operation.
“We continue to train, not just by the Chinese but those taken through the skills transfer programme who understand the entire railway system,” Asienwa said.
“Locomotive drivers undertake practical examinations regularly.”
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Data seen by the Star shows that as of June, 2.722 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers — 33.476 million tonnes of cargo — and 13.056 million passengers had been moved through the railway.
Chris Mwangale, a passenger train attendant, said they had a struggle with the Chinese culture at the beginning of their interactions.
“We had a bit of a challenge with the cultural difference. We struggled a bit but we came to understand each other and synchronised. We have worked very well, learned a lot of skills from them and made good friends,” he said.
Mwangale said the team of onboard technicians is fully local and deals with all technical and safety issues of the train, both mechanical and electrical.
“We are capable of handling all technical issues that occur onboard, from electrical equipment, including a power generator car, air conditioning, lighting, communication and the toilet system. This is a big achievement,” he said.
“We operate majorly like a Swiss army knife. We have mechanical, electrical, communication and social issues to deal with, so it takes more than just technical knowledge. It is more of a relationship. We can organise a lot of things on our own.”
Kenyans, thus, stand a chance for more jobs should the grand plan to extend the SGR to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan materialise.
The extension is among the key issues the Kenyan delegation is expected to advance during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) ministerial summit in Beijing, set for September.
The SGR currently serves three primary clients with pivotal roles in its operations, including BulkStream, Autoports and Africa Rail Operations (ARO).
Bulkstream caters to grain clients and supports farmers by transporting fertiliser, whereas Autoports deals with sugar, rice and fertiliser.
The latter also handles container clients and clearing and forwarding agents, while Africa Rail Operations facilitates the transportation of clinker for Bamburi Cement.
Afristar also works with Kenya Ports Authority “to streamline the clearing process for clearing agents for all containers transported by the SGR”.