Theft at SGR: A shocking report has emerged showing how up to Sh. 1 million is stolen at the SGR daily.

Apparently, the money is stolen through a ticketing scam.

The report, which appeared in a local daily says that the ticketing scam, which involves manipulating the complex booking system operated by CRBC staff to split the ticket revenues between the Chinese railway operator and the cartel of insiders, has been going on for a long time.

Apparently, says the report, one aspect of the scheme under investigation involves creating refunds for tickets already issued to passengers on board for each of the four trips and channelling the refunds elsewhere.

Here is part of the report as published by the Sunday Nation:

“CRBC, which sells about 4,000 tickets per day through a subsidiary firm Africa Star Railway Operations Company, admitted to have been alerted about an anomaly on the refunds with some of its officials having been “questioned” over the same.

“There is an average six percent of refunds per day on tickets sold. We have been informed by the Kenya police of a potential discrepancy involving a few refunded tickets. The police have questioned a few of our officials and we are fully co-operating in the investigations,” Mr Dai Yunjie, the firm’s spokesperson, said.

The trains, which recently celebrated ferrying two million customers, run between 1,200-1,400 passenger capacity with brisk business experienced during festive seasons like December when bookings are made in full a month before.
Sources familiar with the investigations also indicate the advanced booking is another scam in the spotlight.”