China grew its economy by selling fakes, simple!! Infrastructure by itself does not bring development. Ask people in Baringo 
True. Those loosing their jobs can move to where the containers are going. It is the brutality of life. Change lazima.
Lol we need to copy that too!
An upgraded meter gauge railway, due to its original design being over a century old would still have carried a maximum of 5.4 million tonnes a year.
In order for it to have the same capacity as the current SGR, it would have entailed making it a double track railway, straightened most of the curves and also basically changing part of the route between Nairobi and Eldoret due to the steep slope and the fact that even today, some cargo trains on that meter gauge railway could not go past Nairobi due to the design being in place for a single stack train that was made in the 190something.
Nations that still have meter gauge railways like Japan and Australia and India mainly use them for passengers (Japan, India) or transporting bulky agricultural goods from large farms to depots like in Australia. Not for freight as the SGR was introduced for.
The current SGR can handle 22 million tonnes and can easily even handle 50 million tonnes simply by adding more passing stations
The SGR is no scam based on the assumption that it is making a loss
First of all, assuming that the SGR would make a profit in its first five years is unrealistic and nonsensical.
The expectation was that the SGR would make its first profit in 2025.
In fact, the SGR has made several milestones in 2018 that were expected to be met in 2022 like having 7 double stack trains running per day(the Ministry claimed 14 trains but forgot to mention they are single stack) last year. A target that was supposed to be met in 2022
However, several measures were taken in order to cushion the taxpayer from the loss making years.
In 2013, we introduced a 1.5% Railway Development Levy on Kenyan imports.
The aim of the levy was not only to obtain the funds for compensating land owners, but also to create a fund that would cover the loan payments once the Chinese came calling.
Between 2013 and 2017, between 90 and 100 billion was collected(the wide estimate is due to some exemptions, EAC imports were exempt and I understand that Kengen got an exemption for heavy fuel imported for power generation. I am not sure if the other power plants got the exemption as well).
Around 30 billion was used to compensate land owners on the Nairobi - Mombasa stretch while around just less than half that between Nairobi and Naivasha so approximately 55-65 billion should have remained in the RDL kitty.
This is where the scandal is.
Right now the complaint is that we are paying for the railway debt from other taxes which is the second reason why people also think it is a scam.
Where did the 55-65 billion RDL kitty money go?? The 26 billion we are supposed to pay as principal and interest should be coming from all that money accumulated over the years.
Not from our taxes.
As such, the scandal is not the SGR.
The fact that in reality the SGR should be depending on the RDL tax for repayment and even land compensation highlights that the SGR is viable(The RDL tax has almost zero impact on our inflation and before you complain that we are paying for the SGR via a tax. We already do the same for roads. We pay sh. 18 per litre in petrol & diesel for the road maintenance levy. The railway should be treated as being no different.
As such the scam is not the SGR.
The scam is whoever has raided the sh. 55-65 billion for the SGR kitty that was specifically designed to enable us to pay for the loan and compensate land owners with ease to the point that we were forced to make the cost of using the SGR to being even more expensive than using a truck when it should be the opposite and we are using general taxes to pay the loan.
With the RDL in place, Kenya Railways rates for a 20 foot container were supposed to be 35,000 and 45,000 for a 40 foot container for a trip from Mombasa to Nairobi . This would cover the cost of railway transport alone while the RDL would cover maintenance just like what the Road Levy does.
However right now, because the RDL kitty money has been stolen, the SGR is charging 65,000 and above.
So the SGR is very viable but some people are hell bent on driving it to the ground via looting.
Kwani ilikuwa yajengwa halafu China wabebe?
Mnaumiza call girls wa Kyumvi na vile majaa w trela Walikuwa daily customers
Dr Hannibal Lecter
ha ha ha, watafute customers kwa Train Station sasa