Friday, March 29, 2024

Mwananchi to pay sh.30 billion more for SGR land

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project began in December 2014 in Mombasa and has reached Syokimau in Machakos. The railway line is expected to be extended from Nairobi to Malaba through Naivasha, Narok, Bomet and Kisumu. In its first phase, the government paid Sh30 billion to acquire land for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).
The amount is nearly 10 times the initial budget of Sh3.8 billion set aside for land compensation and is expected to be higher in the next phases of the project. By 2016, Sh30 billion had already been spent towards issues of land acquisition.

The John Hopkins University’s China Africa Research initiative has done two studies on
the subject matter; African politics meets Chinese engineers: The Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway SGR Project in Kenya and East Africa and China in East Africa and the Horn: ports, trains and industrial zones. The findings indicate that an estimated 10 per cent share of the total construction cost of Sh383 billion for the first phase was allocated towards resettlement and compensation.

The researchers on their recommendations advised the government
to practise more transparency around the financing and cost valuation of the project to avoid criticism and to improve overall cost control as well as long-term fiscal and economic impact assessment.

 “The top-down approach produces conflicts and leads to non-negotiable standard packages since it prioritises speed and political expediency over quality and local issues,” they further state.

The studies recommended a thorough understanding of the political background of the host country, noting that this is crucial in managing local expectations and grievances. They called on Chinese companies to increase transparency around projects, in particular to bring in researchers and media professionals, to avoid perceptions that there was anything to hide.

“If an infrastructure project is not economically viable it will leave the host country with a high debt burden and little development benefit,” the reports stated.

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