10 July 2009
Nairobi — The government has set in motion plans for the construction of the second railway line in Kenya in more than a century.
Kenya Railways Corporation managing director Nduva Muli said on Friday the parastatal would soon start inviting consultants for the design of the new track. This follows the allocation of Sh3 billion in the budget for the construction of a new standard-gauge railway line linking the port at Mombasa to Kigali, Rwanda's capital, through Uganda.
According to Mr Muli, the construction of the railway requires $8.5 billion (Sh680 billion) with the cost expected to be shared by the three countries. "The allocation might look small but it is actually a good beginning," said Mr Muli. The construction is expected to start next year and it would take a minimum of three years to complete the job, he added.
It will be the first time new railway tracks will be laid in Kenya more than a century after the current one was completed by the British using Indian coolies. The advantage of the standard gauge railway lies in its ability to handle more weight and speed than the current one. The internationally recommended track width is 1.4 metres and the region's rail system at a metre wide is seen as obsolete and unproductive.
Mr Muli added that plans to revamp commuter rail transport in Nairobi were progressing smoothly with studies on the number of people it would serve and the volume of traffic having been completed.
He said talks on cancelling the concession agreement between the government and Rift Valley Railways are still going on but declined to disclose further details. Mr Muli was speaking at the launch of a new curriculum for the Railways Training Institute held at Panari Hotel. He said KR had proposed that RTI be converted into a State corporation to develop into a reputable technical training centre for the region.
Currently, RTI is a department of KR and is managed by a board that reports to the Kenya Railways' board of directors. RTI's principal Milly Kiziili-Otieno said the institute needed an independent budget and to enable it make decisions faster. A line linking it to the main Mombasa-Nairobi section of the railway has also been encroached upon, making it hard for the students to do their practical work.
She said the idea behind RTI's independence was to enable it grow into a university. RTI was, however, warned against being too ambitious and diverting from its core business.
Prof Seth Owido, the academic registrar at Egerton University, cautioned against the trend where technical institutes are being upgraded to university status, sometimes without facilities.
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