Kafrican
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 26, 2015
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That kind of stuff was debunked by facts long time ago... if you interested in stories from journalist who enjoy criticizing for the sake of it then you can believe whatever they say....if anyone is interested in Facts then they will get fact..Why the standard gauge railway is not cost-effective
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2015 13:48
WERE: Why the standard gauge railway is not cost-effective
The standard gauge railway (SGR) being developed by the Kenyan Government will connect Mombasa to Malaba—with a branch line to Kisumu—onward to Kampala, Kigali (with a line to Kasese) and Juba, with a line to Pakwach.
Ethiopia is also developing Ethiopia Rail (ER) which will link Addis Ababa to Djibouti.
The importance of the SGR to Kenya is the potential dividend that will arise from bolstering infrastructure in the country. The government expects the project to reduce freight costs from $0.20 per tonne/km to $0.08 per tonne/km. But the SGR is expensive.
Last week, the Treasury said the SGR has caused an upward revision of the fiscal deficit from the initial 7.4 per cent of GDP to 12.2 per cent.
Is the approach in the construction of the SGR the most cost effective? A comparison with the ER would be useful.
As early as 2013, experts raised questions about the costing of the SGR—Kenyans are being charged $6.6 million per kilometre compared to $4.9 million per kilometre for Ethiopia’s ER.
This is a concern for as experts have pointed out, there are no major rivers or lakes or big hills to justify the high cost of the SGR.
In addition, parts of the ER will be a double track, and not a single track as the SGR is in its entirety. The SGR freight will have an average speed of 80kph while the ER will go up to 120kph.
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Experts say it is doubtful those speeds will be reached by the SGR because it is a single track and stoppages will be needed to allow other trains to pass.
The SGR passenger train will have an average speed of 120kph while the ER will have an average speed of 160kph with future provision for 225kph.
Questions also arise as Kenya is spending more to buy its trains and rolling stock than Ethiopia.
Ethiopia has also been smarter in regard to reaping human development dividends from rail construction. It has been using the development to build domestic technical capacity.
Reports indicate that foreign contractors conduct training for local staff at the Institute of Technology in Addis Ababa University.
Further, the Ethiopian government is sending promising undergraduates to Russia, India and China to continue their education.
Indeed, the Ethiopian government is doing all it can to ensure that the next phases of the ER and other rail network projects will be carried out entirely by Ethiopian enterprises. Are there such plans and activities going on in regard to Kenya’s SGR?
The basic sense one gets when comparing the SGR to the ER is that Ethiopia has been able to get a better deal overall and is leveraging the experience to build domestic capacity and reduce future dependence on external contractors for rail construction.
Kenya, on the other hand, has agreed to a plan that appears not to be cost effective and there have been no indications Kenya will use SGR construction to build domestic capacity.
In short, the ER is cost-effective and it will transform domestic capacity while the SGR is expensive with no marked improvement in domestic capacity.
I have long argued that if we do not leverage all infrastructure development projects to build domestic technical capacity, Kenya will be relegated to eternal dependence on others to do the basics of building infrastructure. The prudence of such a strategy is questionable.
Kenya is in a position to learn from Ethiopia and pressure must be applied to ensure such learning happens.
Anzetse is a development economist; email: anzetsew@gmail.com
First of all, part of the deal with China was that they were going to build a permanent training school in along the Kenya SGR.. in addition the Kenya railway Training institute would be upgraded to a center of excellence for the whole of East Africa so that in future no country from EA and central Africa will have to travel outside this region for railway engineering because even the most advanced stuff will be found here.....
http://krc.co.ke/2016/08/19/sgr-first-batch-of-local-trainees-graduates/
2) the writer questions why the Kenya SGR is more expensive yet there are no rivers or mountains along the route unlike in Ethiopia.... But he leaves out the fact that even though the geography in Kenya along the line is less forgiving than for Ethiopia, the Kenyan side of 460KM has more bridges that the 700km for Ethiopian side, And BTW, the Ethiopia track is only dual track for 120Km, the rest of like 600KM is single track.... the Kenyan one is 427KMwith additional 90KM of loops along 33 stations
then the writer says "Questions also arise as Kenya is spending more to buy its trains and rolling stock than Ethiopia. " He says it as if its a bad thing, I mean what did he expect? Ethiopia is buying 33 locomotives, Kenya is buying 54 locomotives with 1,600Wagons which is part of the cost of the SGR......
On average 2,600 trucks ferry goods from Djibouti to Ethiopia everyday... while on the other hand on average, 4,500 trucks move along Mombasa-Nairobi route everyday.... So did he expect Kenya to buy less locomotives? is this guy just mumbling words just to look like he is saying something?
If that journalist was unbiased and just, he would have atleast asked a question as his headline like "Is Kenya's SGR cost effective?"..... But instead he goes ahead to think on our behalf and conclude for us by telling us right from his headline that it is not cost effective and then give one sided reasons without even digging deeper, just spewing figures that work in favor of his argument..
Have some informed facts here before commenting
