Lest we forget, the old railway is here to stay, and making some progress
What you need to know:
- It is only recently that we have started seeing the green shoots of recovery.
- The potential for growth is very high considering that RVR carries only four per cent of traffic from Mombasa, the rest being trucked up-country by road.
Today, it takes a total 14 days from loading cargo in Mombasa to off-loading it in Kampala by trains run by Rift Valley Railways.
RVR, as we well know, is the entity that was contracted by the governments of Kenya and Uganda several years ago, to run the 1,400-kilometre railway line between Mombasa and Kampala under a 25-year concession.
Yet when you analyse it critically, you will realise that the railway operator is not the biggest culprit for the inordinate amount of time it takes to move cargo from Mombasa to Kampala.
For instance, it still takes days to clear cargo with customs and release goods from Kenya Port Authority warehouses.
When the goods reach Malaba, more days are spent on clearance and verification of contents by Uganda Revenue Authority officials.
In Kampala, more hours are wasted on customs processing – tax verification and release of goods from bonded warehouses to their eventual destination.
When the proposed single customs union is fully operational in coming months, we should start seeing improvements.
Today, what captures the attention of policymakers is the proposed Standard Gauge railway to be built with loans from China.
It’s like we have forgotten that we have an existing metre gauge that continues to do business between Mombasa and Kampala, and which we have privatised for 25 years.
Standard Gauge or not, we are under legal obligation to let these private guys keep operating the meter gauge system for a very long time.
Who will operate the Standard Gauge railway system? Will RVR be among the operators? If the plan is to adopt the so-called open access system with multiple operators, how do we intend procure them?
Yet I am not surprised that we don’t give much attention to the incumbent operator. Even the most ardent supporters of the Kenya Uganda Railway concession have over the years become cynics.
From the days of Mr Roy Puffet and Sheltam International in 2006, the railway concession has been about false starts. It is only recently that we have started seeing the green shoots of recovery.
The numbers and statistics on volumes and operational efficiency are starting to look up. Last year, accidents fell from 226 in the beginning of the year to 97 at year-end. The tonnage of freight moved increased by 40 per cent in the same period.
20 NEW LOCOMOTIVES
There is evidence that the investor has started making significant investment in rehabilitating the permanent way. It has replaced a total of 73 kilometres of rail curves between Mombasa and Nairobi at a total cost of $19 million.
At least 366 kilometres of track between Nairobi and Kampala is being overhauled at a rate of 122 kilometre per year, beginning this year.
In Uganda, the company has replaced nine culverts around the dreaded Iganga district, which is usually rendered impassable during heavy rains.
The company has invested in an automated operations control system centre that links all loading stations and which monitors the movement of locomotives throughout the system.
Next month, RVR will be receiving receiving 20 new locomotives which are already procured. In addition, five locomotives procured under a lease are expected to join the fleet in the same period.
If the company can increase the speed of trains, cut down on accidents, and reduce journey days, it will be able to grow volumes very quickly.
Mark you, annual transportable traffic at the Mombasa port is currently at 20 million tonnes per annum and growing at a rate of 8 per cent.
The potential for growth is very high considering that RVR carries only four per cent of traffic from Mombasa, the rest being trucked up-country by road.
Furthermore, the predictions right now are that the business of carrying bulk traffic will expand following the discovery of oil and coal reserves in Kenya and Uganda.
With more investment in the permanent way, new locomotives and wagons, as well as a strong management team, the lunatic express should be here to stay.
