Sober analysis suggests that, beyond short-term gains in terms of greater customer convenience, the SGR is likely to be economically and financially unviable. Implausibly large increases in freight are required to justify the costs involved, particularly if the SGR is to extendbeyond Nairobi. At $3.8 billion, the first section of the SGR is considered highly overpriced. To continue the line from Nairobi to the Ugandan border would cost an additional $7.2 billion, nearly double the cost of the Mombasa-Nairobi stretch. Speed is not a key issue for freight, which is where the potential profits lie. What matters is cost, predictability and reliability.
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For the projected freight volumes and axle loads, upgrading the metre gauge would have been quite adequate, some argue, at a fraction of the cost of SGR, and could have been entirely financed through the Railway Development Levy on imports. SGR’s purported advantages over other gauges have been over-hyped: Brazil and South Africa move much more freight than the EAC is ever likely to with metre gauge and Cape Gauge respectively. As to being modern, the standard gauge has been around since the 1840s, when the US government declared it as the standard t
Nothing new being said here… Only Jubileeidiots now waking up from their slumber still have a eureka moment now as slowly realize that they were part of the con-train and are now desperately trying to cleanse their foggy guilty consciences.
One David Ndii and RAO told us all these before the work on the railway but they were branded “anti-development” and anti-government… The joke is on you the voters. At least those who resisted have a clear conscience to carry them through the hard times that the Jubileeidiots have put upon all Kenyans.
The joke is on the people who voted thrice for this government who are now realizing that the jubilation of their win lasted only 2 minutes - like a forced orgasm…