President Uhuru Kenyatta has secured an additional $3.59 billion from China to extend SGR from Naivasha to Kisumu.
Uhuru secured the amount that will be available immediately at a meeting with Chinese President XI Jinping on Monday.
“The President wants the railway to reach Kisumu then Malaba especially because of the new port that is being built [there],” said State House Spokesman Manoa Esipisu.
Before flying to China, Uhuru had phone conversations with Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame on the possibility of the two countries extending the railway all the way to Kigali.
As a result, the three countries will send a joint team to Beijing to bid for more funding for SGR to reach Malaba and go on to Kampala and then Kigali.
After the launch of the railway line from Mombasa to Nairobi at the end of May, the Chinese government will provide special security while building the capacity of Kenyans who will take over.
At the moment there are different groups of young Kenyans being trained in various institutions in China on running the railway and its various components.
On April 5, the National Environment Tribunal ordered the contractor to suspend all activities on the Sh63 billion phase 2A of the SGR project.
The order was issued after activist Okiya Omtatah and the Kenya Coalition for Wildlife Conservation appealed the decision by NEMA to issue an environmental impact assessment license on January 10.
They say the EIA was conducted hurriedly, without any consultation and in total disregard of procedural and legal requirements.
Esipisu said the President also secured $161 million dollars for the western by-pass whose work is set to begin in the next few weeks.
“This project will complete the missing links and is part of the wider plan to decongest Nairobi,” said Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia who accompanied Uhuru to Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum.
The western bypass will run from Ruiru to Nakuru-Nairobi highway..read more
