Category: Railways
Why Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway Was Doomed From the Start
Kenya's new multi-billion dollar standard gauge railway (SGR) was destined to fail even before it launched, argued Kenyan legal scholar Luis Franceschi in a new opinion column in the Nation newspaper. Franceschi joins a growing number of analysts who have long asserted that ...
Kenya’s Spiraling Debt Crisis Worsens as the Cost of Chinese Loans Mount, Currency Weakens and Exports Soften
Kenya is rapidly becoming the next flashpoint in the Africa debt crisis amid a dramatic increase in borrowing that threatens to submerge the economy. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) warned on Friday that the country's ballooning debt is ...
Tanzanian Official Publicly Mocks Kenya For Taking Huge Loans From China to Build the Standard Gauge Railway
A video of an unnamed Tanzanian official mocking Kenya for borrowing so much money from China to build the Standard Gauge Railway went viral in East Africa this week. "I do not want to mention ...
Is Default the Next Step for Kenya’s Embattled Standard Gauge Railway?
The Chinese-financed and built Standard Gauge Railway is losing money at an unsustainable rate of $9.2 million per month prompting renewed calls in parliament for the State House to renegotiate the $3.2 billion of loans used to construct the Nairobi to Mombasa ...
China Faces a Critical Test in Kenya
Kenya's difficulties in servicing its debts for the newly-built, Chinese-financed Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is nearing a breaking point. Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, the railway failed to meet passenger and cargo volume targets and now the economic downturn brought on by the ...
The Trains Are Finally Rolling in Nigeria
Say what you want about the Chinese but there's no denying they are damned good at getting stuff done. The sight of a big beautiful new train on freshly laid tracks in Lagos yesterday was something to ...
Test Run for New Chinese-built Railway in Nigeria Sparks a Lot of Excitement
Nigerians got their first look yesterday at the brand new Lagos to Ibadan standard gauge railway, as it conducted its first live test run. This new standard gauge railway is one of eleven transportation projects that Chinese lenders are financing in ...
China’s New Ambassador to Kenya Makes the Rounds
Given China's extensive involvement in building transportation infrastructure in Kenya, it's not surprising that Chief Secretary James Macharia was high on the list of key cabinet stakeholders to meet, as the newly-arrived Chinese ambassador, Zhou Pingjiang, settles into his new role. ...
Nigeria’s New Standard Gauge Railway Trains Are on Their Way From China
The Chinese state-owned contractor building the rail cars for the new Abuja-Kaduna Railway and Lagos-Ibadan Railway SGR lines proudly announced the trains have started their journey from China to Nigeria. But not everyone's happy about the news. A lot of people ...
Kenya’s Inability to Get Shippers to Use its New SGR Cargo Depot in Naivasha Raises Doubts About Debt Repayment
Only 14 cargo trains traveled on the new Mombasa-Naivasha standard gauge railway (SCR) line in June despite the government's order that all goods destined for Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan be cleared at the Naivasha inland container depot (ICD). The resistance ...
Nigeria’s Future Railway Engineers Are Being Trained in China
While China's new railways in Africa are generating a lot of excitement there's also an equal amount of concern over who will maintain this new infrastructure once Chinese contractors handover the project to local stakeholders. In Nigeria, it's going to be ...
New Documentary Makes the Case for Kenya’s Embattled Standard Gauge Railway Cargo Lines
Supporters of Kenya's ailing Standard Gauge Railway produced a 20 minute-documentary that was broadcast on national TV this week in an attempt to persuade an increasingly skeptical public of the SGR's merits. The program was produced by ChamsMedia, ...