Jubilee defends rail cost, contract award

President Uhuru Kenyatta with Deputy President William Ruto (2nd right) and Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho (right) during the launch of the standard gauge railway line at Changamwe Marshalling yard in Mombasa November 28, 2013. Ruto has defended the award of contract to build the new railway to a state-owned Chinese firm, saying the deal is clean and the government is assured the firm can do it. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Officials at the Deputy President’s office had questioned the veracity of the deal before the project was commissioned in December 2013 but his latest statements indicate he is fully behind it.
  • The Chinese firm has experience in the construction of railways and lists, among its projects over the years, the construction of part of the 678.4-kilometre Datong-Xi’an railway in China.

Deputy President William Ruto has defended the award of contract to build the new railway to a state-owned Chinese firm, saying the deal is clean and the government is assured the firm can do it.

Mr Ruto Wednesday said the politicians who have criticised the award of the job to China Road and Bridge Corporation did not have facts about the project, and were likely to have been influenced by bitter businessmen.

Officials at the Deputy President’s office had questioned the veracity of the deal before the project was commissioned in December 2013 but his latest statements indicate he is fully behind it.

“We will build the railway because it is a national project. We have done due diligence as a government. We cannot possibly put Sh320 billion on the line without thinking,” he told Citizen TV’s Cheche show.

The Jubilee administration’s defence has been that the railway deal was a government-to-government agreement where “the President sat down with the President of China” and therefore not open to competitive tendering.

The Chinese firm has experience in the construction of railways and lists, among its projects over the years, the construction of part of the 678.4-kilometre Datong-Xi’an railway in China.

Working in more than 45 countries, the company is involved in the construction of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, airports and ports. It built the Northern and Eastern bypasses in Nairobi and is currently building the Southern Bypass.

Mr Ruto said the new railway would have the capacity to increase Kenya’s Gross Development Product by between 1.8 and 2.5 percentage points.

“We can take our GDP from five per cent to seven per cent just by making sure that we build the railway and it is working, and that, we intend to do,” he said, noting that the government had set itself the target of ensuring the line from Mombasa to Nairobi was completed by 2017.

The Deputy President said the plan was to ensure that the line to Malaba was completed in the next seven years and then onward to Rwanda and South Sudan.

Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter has been among the most vocal critics of the railway tender, with Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula alleging that more than Sh400 billion is likely to be lost in the deal.

Mr Ruto, however, said Mr Keter did not have the facts “because he was a stooge of somebody.”

The Deputy President spoke a day after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission said it would investigate the tender award after receiving claims that it was improper. It joins the Public Investments and the Transport committees of the National Assembly in looking into the matter.

ORIGIN OF THE PROCESS

Nominated Senator Beatrice Elachi told the Nation yesterday the inquiries should also involve the former Kenya Railways boss Nduva Muli, now the Transport Principal Secretary, as he would have a good idea about the origin of the process.

“The Jubilee Government found this process going on and when PIC starts their job, they should ask when it started, who designed the railway and how they got the contract,” she said.

Most complaints have centred on the cost of the railway, with comparisons made with a similar project in Ethiopia. Mr Ruto said the Kenyan line would cost $3.9 million per kilometre compared to $3.8 million in Ethiopia and $5.9 million in Uganda.

The cost of the Kenyan one is higher than that in Ethiopia because it includes rolling stock, locomotives, workshops and other components.