NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 17 – Kenya is set to sign Sh380 billion debt financing for the construction of the Phase 2B of the Standard Gauge Railway between Naivasha and Kisumu.
Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said he will part of a delegation that will travel to China between September 1st to September 5th to sign the deal.
China is currently financing Section 2A SGR line from Nairobi to Naivasha that is currently under construction valued at Sh150 billion.
In 2016, Kenya and the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) signed an agreement for the construction of the Naivasha-Malaba Standard Gauge Railway line under the Kenya SGR Development Project valued at Sh549 billion.
The four commercial contracts are for the development of the four phases of the project including Naivasha- Kisumu, Kisumu-Malaba, Kisumu Port Development, train stations and modernization and expansion of the inland Container Depot at Embakasi in Nairobi.
Kenya is constructing a Standard Gauge Railway between Mombasa and Malaba as part of the East African Community protocol for the development of an SGR connecting the port of Mombasa to Kampala, Kigali and Juba.
The section between Mombasa and Naivasha is supposed to be in operation by December 2018 and member states are working towards meeting the timelines of the directive.
So far the first phase of the project from Mombasa to Nairobi is completed and was launched in June 2017.
Since its launch, over 1 million passengers have taken the Madaraka Express while on the cargo side, the SGR cargo services were up and running on January 1, 2018, with an initial monthly load of 22,345 metric tonnes rising to 213,559 metric tonnes per month as of the end of April 2018.