Keeping up with the many promises of CS Macharia

By today, Thika Road should be busy with over 150 high-capacity buses charging a standard fare of Sh20 between Githurai and the city centre.

The standard gauge railway (SGR) should also have long broken even and there should be lots of excess cash pilling in the escrow account in readiness to start repaying the loan from next year.

Even the much-awaited high-capacity vehicles for the Bus Rapid Transit should be here already — never mind there is no proper infrastructure for such a system apart from fading red paint on the superhighway.

All these remain a mirage, perhaps except in Transport Cabinet secretary James Macharia’s world.

His ministry, which is one of the largest with a massive budget, has five principal secretaries overseeing State departments of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development, Maritime and Shipping Affairs and Public Works.

RAIL UPGRADE

The former banker who told a local television station how he lost many kilogrammes when he joined Cabinet in the health docket, seems to have also lost a sense of timeliness by being consistently inconsistent. Keeping track of his many promises is no easy task.

In Mr Macharia’s world, June may mean December and a few months may just be a way of saying it may never happen.

When he accompanied President Uhuru Kenyatta to the Belt and Road forum in Beijing in April, the CS said they had secured some Sh40 billion to upgrade the Metre Gauge Railway (MGR) lines from Naivasha instead of building the SGR to Kisumu.

Less than a week later, the CS said they were going to upgrade both the line to Malaba and the one to Kisumu to create seamless transport to the region and beyond.

A few days later, the CS said the Kisumu line was badly vandalised and only the Malaba one would be upgraded.

CAR-FREE DAY

These are not his quickest about turns, in January, Mr Macharia controversially announced that Nairobi residents would be expected to use public service vehicles every Wednesday and Saturday, starting on Friday, February 1. The next day he suspended it and has since kept quiet.

In fact, in the next two months, the CS expects to negotiate with private investors to fund a Sh21 billion plan to build the new 43km railway line linking the SGR and the MGR in Naivasha.

He also hopes to have the buses from South Africa arrive in the country and the diesel multiple units from Spain get shipped to start moving thousands of city residents without any hassles. Unbelievable, but then again, maybe miracles still happen.

By September, the first housing units under the affordable housing scheme should be ready for occupation and many more investors have expressed strong desire in the controversial project.

SGR PROFITS

The lanes drawn on Thika Superhighway for the high-capacity buses have since faded.

The tens of National Youth Service buses are no longer being talked about and no one can guess what happened to the 50 buses that matatu owners were to bring on board.

A year after his comments on SGR profits — and two years after its launch — the new rail struggles to break even and cargo transport remains cheaper by the road.

The DMUs purchase remains in limbo and even the upgrading of railway tracks within Nairobi is yet to start.

Yet, it seems, Mr Macharia still holds onto his pledges. Oops, and never mind the occasional outburst like when he opted for the blunt bargaining option that labelled striking airport workers “criminals”. That did not seem to go down too well.

FATE OF PLEDGES

It is hard to distinguish whether he has a preference for alternative facts or the delays are due to factors beyond his control, but no one in Cabinet beats the 60-year-old father of two in the game of incredible pledges.

For example, he once told this writer in an interview that the Chinese railway builder would be contractually compelled to source 40 per cent of materials from the local market.

But it later turned out the contract compelled Kenya to buy materials from China.

Nonetheless, Mr Macharia arguably remains one of the most powerful Cabinet secretaries with a central role in securing President Kenyatta’s legacy.

But how long will the Kagumo High School old boy continue with his many promises?