Land hitch 'holding up’ railway

Delayed acquisition of land is holding up the construction of the new rail line linking Mombasa and Nairobi, the Kenya Railways Corporation boss has said.

Mr Atanas Maina told the National Assembly’s Transport, Public Works and Housing Committee that once the National Land Commission finished buying the railway land, the contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation, would move to the site. The contractor has set up sites on part of the land.

The first one in Nairobi is behind the railway station. There are some at Makindu, among other areas on the way to Mombasa.

Mr Maina said land acquisition was taking longer than planned.

“The contractor wants 60 per cent of the land by August and the remaining 40 per cent by December to commence construction by October,” said the railways boss.

The land commission has published in the Kenya Gazette 172 kilometres of the largely private land needed for the railway. Another 133 kilometres is within the Tsavo National Park while the one in the Nairobi National Park is less than five kilometres, said Mr Maina.

The Treasury earlier said the estimated cost of buying land for the railway was Sh8 billion.

Mr Maina said the land would be paid for using cash from the Railway Development Fund, already approved and being collected by the Kenya Revenue Authority. Mr Maina told the MPs that the land commission said the Kenya Wildlife Service would not be paid for its land because it was a public agency but would get land elsewhere.

The railway will be elevated in areas occupied by wild animals, he added.

The Transport and the Public Investment committees have developed fresh interest in the railway after a firm that lost the bid to become an independent consultant questioned the award of the job to a consortium of Chinese and Kenyan companies.