Why I choose to support SGR despite graft and other queries

I will leave it to the politicians to shout one another out to milk maximum propaganda points and fight about who between them should take credit for giving us the standard gauge railway (SGR).

And, I don’t want to venture into the academic exercise of trying to apportion credit the between the Jubilee administration and the coalition government of former President Mwai Kibaki and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga over who is responsible for delivering the largest and most expensive infrastructure project in the country’s history.

Indeed, any honest attempt at apportioning credit between the two administrations has to go back to history.

The whole idea of the SGR started with a communique from State House, Nairobi, that was issued by Mr Kibaki and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on October 28, 2008, where they agreed to build the new railway line.

FEASIBILITY STUDY

On August 12, 2009, the government signed a memorandum of understanding with China Roads and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), allowing the contractor to undertake a feasibility study at zero cost.

On July, 11, 2012, the CRBC and Kenya Railways Corporation signed a commercial contract to build the line.

If you follow the correspondence, you will see how former head of Public Service Amos Kimemia, was frantically whipping permanent secretaries to move things as fast as possible to prepare for a ground-breaking ceremony by President Kibaki on November 10, 2012.

Thus, while Jubilee has the bragging rights for playing the midwife, the coalition government is not wrong to claim responsibility for conceiving the baby.

COST FOUR TIMES

Let us all welcome the SGR. You can argue and debate whether the feasibility study was conducted at arms length and whether the project was procured transparently.

You can debate the cost of the project and compare prices with similar projects in the region.

During the recent one-belt, one-road forum in Bejing, the Chinese themselves wondered why ours cost us four times what similar projects cost other countries.

You can argue that the largest infrastructure project in the economy did not stimulate any appreciable domestic industry and that the contractor insisted on importing most of the cement from China.

FAKE LAND DOCUMENTS

Away from the public limelight, a brisk underground business for fake land documents, mainly forged ‘part-development plans’ and fraudulent title deeds exploded.

Chasing payments, especially on behalf of individuals who had compensation claims running into hundreds of millions, evolved into a high stakes business.

Stories about how well-connected operatives in the Jubilee administration were making hundreds of millions from peddling influence through facilitating land compensation claims became commonplace.

Literally, the whole leadership of the National Land Commission found themselves facing investigations, with one found with a whopping Sh20 million stashed under mattresses.

At the end of it all, we were paying a massive Sh30 billion in land compensation, nearly 30 per cent of what we had borrowed from China to build the railway line.

LOW RETURNS

Yet I still choose to support the SGR. As veteran newspaper commentator on public policy issues, I have been at it long enough to appreciate that an investment in infrastructure that may appear to have low returns in the short-term, tends to have incredibly high returns in the long-term.

Several years ago, we shouted ourselves hoarse about Turkwel Dam.

Today, it is an integral part of our hydro-electric power generation capacity.

We criticised Eldoret Airport as unviable and dismissed it as an investment funded by expensive and corruptly committed commercial loans.

SUPPORTING SGR

Today, it is one the fastest growing cargo hums of the region.

If I had the powers and means, I would force the two leading presidential candidates, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Raila Odinga, to declare that they will continue supporting SGR until it reaches Malaba through Kisumu, even after the elections.

The idea that the second phase should – after Naivasha - follow Narok-Bomet-Kisumu-Yala-Bumala- to Malaba makes economic sense. We are, for the first time, creating a reliable link to one of our most-prized national assets, the Maasai Mara.

COMPENSATION DEALS

Secondly, it is now the turn of the Maasai, Kalenjin, Kisii, Luo, and Luhya, who own land on the route, to eat from compensation deals.

And, under the agreement we are negotiating with the Chinese, the plan is that once the SGR hits Kisumu, they will build a new port, complete with new vessels, at a cost Sh14 billion. This is going to be the largest investment in that part of the world in years.

If it works, the proposed Kisumu Port will become the beach-head for regional traffic across Lake Victoria to northern Tanzania, Uganda, and through River Kagera, to Rwanda. Let us all hail the advent of the standard gauge railway.

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