RVR: rewind

18 months ago when this deal was sealed, several of us bloggers had a debate on pesa-tu's blog and its fair to say that I was probably the only one querying certain aspects of the deal. It was a deal that was written to fail and has only been rescued by an unusually vigilant railway regulator. 25 years is a long-time to give somebody to turn around a business even in such a capital intensive industry such as rail. Imagine all RVR had to do in the first 1 year was to maintain the same level of service as before and with headcount reduction it would have made good returns even with Jan's disruptions. Well well...

It's almost certain that this deal will have to be re-written, handed over to someone or incredibly be going back to square one. The tragedyof it is that we really need a functioning railway transport system. I'd go as far as to say that our economy is not going to grow consistently until we figure out and implement a comprehensive railway policy so that we have a transit system in the major towns and links to our neighbours and throughout the country.

Hopefully, the solution the PM-headed team who seems to have realised how important the cross-country links, will come up with a clear policy on the following:

• Short-term goals: to get Kenya-Uganda railway to level that meets the cargo clearance levels at the Mombasa port. This will in turn generate the requisite revenue needed to meet...
• Medium-term goals: upgrade equipment (tracks, wagons) so as to bring them from 19th to 21st century. In turn generating returns to allow us to meet...
• Long-term goals: modern railway system for Nairobi and perhaps Mombasaas well as a system that successfully criss-crosses all our provinces so for example there would be a line to Lodwar, Meru, Kakamega and so forth.