Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia (right) and other government officials when they received the first batch of standard gauge railway locomotives at the Mombasa port on January 11, 2017. Mr Macharia said the railway project will be completed 18 months ahead of schedule. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP  The government is set to receive 50 more locomotives by May 2017, ahead of the commissioning of the Sh372 billion standard gauge railway (SGR) on June 1. Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said in Mombasa on Wednesday that the second batch of six locomotives are expected to arrive at the Mombasa port in February while the last batch of 44 will be delivered by May 2017. The minister, who spoke at the port when he received the first batch of six locomotives and railway engines, said the SGR project will be completed 18 months ahead of schedule. He was accompanied by Transport and Infrastructure Principal Secretaries Irungu Nyakera and John Mosonik, Kenya Ports Authority Managing Director Catherine Mturi-Wairi and Kenya Railways Corporation chairman Jeremiah Kianga. The six locomotives, which were manufactured by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation Company, included four freight locomotives. They were delivered by the Chinese Engineering, Procurement and Construction Company and China Road and Bridge Corporation. “I am glad that the standard gauge railway civil works were completed in November last year and now we have started to receive the 56 locomotives in batches,” he said. FREIGHT WAGONS Mr Macharia added that 1,620 freight wagons are...

University students from the East African region will be able to transfer credits from one university to another within the five member states of the East African Community from February, if the region’s heads of state endorse a plan to create a common higher education area. Under the proposal presented in a harmonisation document by the community’s higher education body, the Inter-University Council of East Africa, and already approved by education ministers of the trading bloc, students will be able to move from any of the more than 100 public and private universities in the region at any stage of learning, without having to sit a special entry examination. The community, with an estimated population of 150 million citizens, consists of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi and is in the process of admitting a new member, Africa’s youngest state, South Sudan. “Under the proposed harmonised higher education framework, student mobility will be made seamless enabling learners to move from one institution to the other at will,” said Cosam Chawanga, IUCEA’s head of quality assurance. Universities in the region will recognise qualifications from any chartered university and from every programme accredited by individual higher education authorities in the countries of origin, said Chawanga. The creation of a common higher education region was slated to have been completed in 2016 but bureaucratic procedures delayed the process, the officer noted. Last December though, education ministers met in Arusha, Tanzania, the bloc’s headquarters, and approved the proposed harmonisation document ahead of February’s heads of state summit...

Many must have caught the comments by the East African Community’s outgoing Director-General in charge of Trade and Customs, Peter Kiguta, when he said in The EastAfrican last week that the earlier enthusiasm among member states to move the region towards higher levels of integration “seems to have waned over the past two years.” He is right. Things like regional integration are no different from a successful music album. Not all the songs on it have to be a hit. You need only need one big one, and the album achieves greatness. But just being a hit is not enough. Thus Ghanaian hip hop artist Fuse ODG’s song Azonto was a big hit, but what turned it into a phenomenon was that it became wildly danceable too. Likewise, the EAC has some big hits – the One Stop Border Posts (OSBP) initiative, the Kenya-Uganda-Rwanda Single Tourist Visa, the dramatic reductions in port delays at Mombasa, the increased ease of travel using IDs, and so on. The problem is that they are not danceable. They are the sausage without the sizzle. In this day and age, when the distractions on social media are endless, the memorable things, and the ones that form their own reality, are the hashtags that trend. The EAC’s problem then is not that it hasn’t done great things. Rather, it has done nothing that is hashtag worthy. For something to be hashtag worthy, it doesn’t have to create 10,000 jobs. It just has to be razzle-dazzle. Something...

Experts confirm potential of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in African (PIDA) to contribute jobs and GDP growth When the Lamu Port, South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor Project (LAPSSET) won the prestigious Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum Award in Washington DC on March 10, 2016, the project was up against equally critical multi-billion dollar programmes including Mexico City New International airport and Seine-Nord Europe Canal, connecting northern European countries such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. LAPSSET’s award in the job creation category honours leaders “driving the next generation’s most transformative global infrastructure projects.” Since inception in 2012, LAPSSET has created an estimated 5,000 direct jobs for the 500- kilometre road between Isiolo in Kenya and Moyale, a market town on the border of Ethiopia and Kenya. Opportunities in engineering designs around the Port of Lamu, banking, telecommunications, and energy generation are still available. LAPSSET, a flagship project of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in African (PIDA) and highlighted at the 2016 PIDA week has set the path. Once completed the project is anticipated to inject 2 to 3% in Kenya’s GDP but also position the country as an economic hub in East Africa. We are convinced that the 51 priority projects identified under PIDA in the areas of energy, transport, ICT and trans-boundary water will follow suit. Creating productive jobs remains a key challenge in sub-Saharan Africa where nine out of ten workers in both rural and urban areas are estimated to hold only informal jobs (ILO, 2009). By 2050,...

The private sector has cited high logistical costs as one of the biggest impediments to doing business in Kenya. The sector is also concerned over the bureaucratic bottlenecks that gag quick land accusation despite the many infrastructural projects that the Government has put up in recent times. “A lot of work has to be done on the regulations relating to logistics. Delays in land acquisitions and sales documents alongside high transport costs remain leading issues that turn away potential investors,” said Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) Chief Executive Office Carole Kariuki. She spoke at the signing of a partnership with global publishing, research and consultancy firm Oxford Business Group (OBG) on Monday. Ms Kariuki said if the State does not act fast to address these impediments, achievement of Vision 2030 goals will remain a pipe dream. CONTINUED GROWTH The Kepsa boss also urged the Government to stop restricting Kenya’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework to infrastructural projects. “PPPs should be used more widely across all the sectors of the economy rather than being restricted primarily to the country’s infrastructure projects. I reckon that further work is needed in the current PPP framework,” she said. Ms Kariuki added that despite the current framework showing signs of improvement in its application, the Government should put more effort in making it more viable. “We believe that the current framework is working well only for large projects. In order for it to be improved, the Government needs to focus on creating bankable projects. Furthermore, the...

Importers are worried that the new directive to insure all cargo locally might turn into a trade barrier. Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association (KIFWA) warned that they will fight the new directive should it turn out to be a non-tariff barrier (NTB) - a form of restrictive trade where barriers to trade are set up and take a form other than a tariff. “We hope this directive will not affect the time to clear cargo from the port,” said KIFWA representative William Ojonyo during the launch of Jubilee Insurance’s marine cargo insurance that will enable customers and intermediaries to manage their own marine insurance policy. Mr Ojonyo said as much as clearing and forwarding agents would like to be part of this initiative, they wanted it to be “seamless”. No capacity “We do not want to do a lot of walking. Manual will not be helpful,” said Ojonyo in an event that was also attended by the new insurance regulatory authority CEO Godfrey Kiptum. Effective January 1, 2017, it is mandatory for all commercial imports to be insured locally under Section 20 of the Insurance Act Cap 487. However, Jubilee Insurance CEO Patrick Tumbo assured importers that they had the capacity to roll out marine insurance. He also said that, just as many other insurance products, the cost for marine insurance will not be fixed. “All we need is a system that is easy to navigate,” said Mr Tumbo. There have been concerns that local insurance firms have no...

Dar es Salaam — China has pledged more development support for Tanzania to enable the country meet targets set in the 2016/20 National Development Plan and achieve the ambition to build the industrial economy. The Chinese minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Wang Yi, issued the promise during official talks with his Tanzanian counterpart, Dr Augustine Mahiga in the city. Mr Yi had paid a day-long official visit. He said, China was ready to assist Tanzania in its development projects particularly roads, railway and the construction of ports in Bagamoyo and Zanzibar. "The cooperation will continue to go deeper and extensively, and China will always stand shoulder to shoulder in the making of Tanzania development and for the wellbeing of it's people," he said. This was among the issues which dominated the one-hour discussions between the two delegations at the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Convention Centre in Dar es Salaam. "We also promise to pump industrial investment as a way to support the government mission of building an industrial economy,"he said. Moreover, he assured continued support for Tanzania in the latter's bid to improve industries and infrastructure. For his part, Dr Mahiga welcomed the support, saying that the government was ready for the move, as part of efforts to improve lives of of the people. "We encourage many Chinese companies to invest in Tanzania and again, they have shown interest to build us new structures in Dodoma," he said. According to him, China is committed to pose comprehensive reforms at Tazara to...

IN SUMMARY Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia is expected to flag off the locomotive engines. President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto have said that the first train will set off from Nairobi on June 1 to Mombasa. Four locomotives and two Shatners (railway engines) arrived at the port of Mombasa on Monday as the Sh372 billion Standard Gauge Railway takes shape. Kenya Ports Authority managing director Catherine Mturi-Wairi received the cargo that arrived aboard MV Kota Bistari from the manufacturer, China Railway Rolling Stock. The locomotives have been brought into the country by the Chinese Engineering, Procurement and Construction Company and China Road and Bridge Corporation for the multi-billion project expected to be launched in June. The equipment arrived on Sunday night and is the first batch of the locomotives expected to haul modern wagons along the Standard Gauge Railway ahead of their commissioning on Wednesday. Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia is expected to flag off the locomotive engines. The Shatners are railway engines but do not pull wagons; they are used to test the efficiency and suitability of the railway line before the locomotives use them. Ms Mturi-Wairi was accompanied by general manager for technical services Joseph Atonga, corporate services manager Martin Mutuku and head of security Mariam Hamisi in receiving the equipment at the port. President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto have said that the first train will set off from Nairobi on June 1 to Mombasa. The SGR is...

Preparations for the arrival of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) locomotives at the Mombasa Port are in high gear. Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has started modernising the Embakasi Inland Container Depot in readiness for arrival of the first batch of the locomotives ahead of the project’s commissioning. The project’s contractor, China Road and Bridges Corporation (CRBC), has laid out a temporary SGR rail track alongside berth 11 at the port where the ship loaded with the SGR locomotives – MV Kota Bistari – is expected to offload its cargo today. The temporary rail track will be used to shunt out the new locomotives out of the port and into kilometre zero section outside the facility where the SGR line starts. Kenya Railways Corporation is developing a new SGR line for passengers and cargo transportation between Mombasa and Nairobi. Speaking at the port yesterday during the offloading of eight rubber-tyred gantry cranes imported from China, KPA Principal Corporate Communications officer Haji Masemo said the equipment will come in handy as the depot gets busier. “We are anticipating an increase in handling of cargo at the Embakasi depot once SGR trains start full operations by mid this year, hence the upgrade of the facility,’’ he said. Mr Masemo said the depo used to handle 180,000 TEUs (Twenty Equivalent Foot) units, but with the coming into operations of SGR, the figure is likely to rise to 450,000 TEUs. The rubber-tyred gantry cranes were brought in as complete knock-down components and are to be...

Kenya’s exports to Uganda declined by 20 per cent in the first 10 months of 2016 in a worrying trend that has seen the country lose out in other key markets. Latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), besides drop in exports to Rwanda and the United Kingdom, showed exports to Uganda dipped from Sh52.2 billion last year to Sh41.8 billion in the 10 months to October. Uganda is Kenya’s biggest export market and a drop should worry policy makers at a time when the East African market has been flooded by cheaper imports from China. The KNBS report, however, does not explain why there was this decline but previous reports by the World Bank and other agencies have suggested that Kenya could lose its Ugandan market to Chinese goods since they are similar in nature. “Exports to Tanzania and Uganda are quite similar to China’s, compared to both countries’ exports to the United States or the UK. The greater overlap in East Africa suggests that Chinese goods will likely displace Kenyan exports,” a recent World Bank report read in part. Kenya mostly exports food, beverages and small industrial products to Uganda. In addition the country is major route for Uganda’s fuel exports since it is landlocked. But Kenya is fighting to keep its leadership as the preferred route for importation of petroleum products for other East African Community (EAC) members, due to concerns of adulteration. Rwanda prefers to use Tanzania, which it claims has cleaner fuel...