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Vol 55 No 4

Published 21st February 2014


Kenya

No way to run a railway

President Kenyatta is backing a US$4 billion no-bid contract with a state-owned Chinese company to rebuild the Nairobi-Mombasa railway

Kenya's flagship transport plan, the Standard Gauge Railway Project (SGRP), is attracting growing controversy over its enormous cost and the uncontested contract award for the first phase. The Kenya Railways Corporation handed this to the state-owned China Roads and Bridges Corporation (CRBC). The 485-kilometre first phase, due to be completed in 2016, will link Mombasa to Nairobi and be built alongside the existing narrow gauge (1,000 millimetre) line operated by Rift Valley Railways under a 25-year concession from KRC and the Uganda Railways Corporation granted in 2006. RVR is a consortium of Egyptian Ahmed Heikal's private equity firm Citadel Capital and the Kenyan investment group TransCentury.

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