Madaraka Express arrives at the Mombasa Terminus in Miritini from Nairobi in July 2023.
Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has assumed 90 per cent of operations of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) line from the Chinese firm Africa Star Railway Operation Company (Afristar) ahead of a full takeover in June next year as part of a plan to cut soaring operational costs.
“The process is going and as per the initial plan, the last function is scheduled to be handed over by December 31, 2025. However, the KR management is in discussion with Afristar to hand back all functions by June 2025,” KRC managing director Philip Mainga said in an interview.
The initial timeline for completion of the takeover was May 2022. KRC said it has already taken over 90 per cent of the SGR functions from Afristar, with plans underway to control the ‘signalling’ function by December this year which will chop reliance on Afristar to about six per cent.
“The system is now run by Kenyans with localisation standing at 87 per cent. This is subject to change in December when the corporation takes over the function of signalling hence reducing reliance on Chinese to about six per cent,” Mr Mainga said.
“These are areas relating to the safety of running trains which require extensive training and skills by Kenyan personnel. However, this has since been in progress and explains why the Corporation intends to take over by June 2025 and not in December 2025 as earlier planned,” says Mainga.
KRC said 962 staff have been deployed from Afristar to the corporation to manage the already handed-over functions and an extra 150 are expected to join by the end of this year.
This is in addition to the 1,280 employees that KRC inherited from the defunct Rift Valley Railways (RVR) after the botched 25-year concession in 2017
“When we took over the entire meter gauge operations from RVR we inherited up to 1,280 employees. The size of the payroll is within our target of 30 per cent staff cost as a ratio of revenue,” says Mainga
After many years of loss-making, the government decided to concession the freight and passenger rail services and subsequently, the KRC Act was amended to allow the provision of rail services through concession.
