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SGR cost inflated 10 times, says Jimi Wanjigi
Businessman Jimi Wanjigi who claims he birthed the idea of construction of a standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Malaba in 2008 at a cost of Sh55 billion, to be funded privately.
Kenyans were never supposed to foot the more than Sh500 billion bill for the standard gauge railway (SGR), whose price was inflated by over 10 times, according to businessman Jimi Wanjigi.
Mr Wanjigi, who now claims he birthed the project idea in 2008, says construction of the railway line from Mombasa to Malaba was originally meant to cost Sh55 billion, and was to be funded privately.
The businessman did not, however, provide any evidence to back his claims.
In an interview with Citizen TV, the businessman, who has announced his intentions to vie for presidency next year, said the cost of the project was exaggerated more than 10 times what feasibility studies showed after the Jubilee government took over.
“SGR was a project birthed by me in 2008 with the same company called China Road and Bridge. We birthed it. We spent a lot of money doing feasibility and technical studies. The intention, when we began, was that the rail was going to be a private rail, nothing to do with government. In fact, government was just supposed to provide the land, which we were prepared to lease. It was like a real estate project,” Mr Wanjigi said in the Sunday night interview.
Mr Wanjigi said his engagements with China Road and Bridge Corporation were to the extent that the project would take a public private partnership format, where funding would be sourced privately.
“It was Sh55 billion from Mombasa all the way to Kisumu, in fact Malaba. .. What we wanted to do was straighten up the line and because we know who carries cargo, get them to invest in the wagons rolling stock and pay us real estate value. That was the intention of SGR that I started,” Mr Wanjigi said.
He said he differed with the Jubilee administration after seeing how the cost had been inflated, and that its original structure had been altered to have taxpayers pay for it.
“After 2013 … it became a project that was now not worth Sh55 billion between Mombasa and Malaba, but Sh300 billion plus, just from Mombasa to Nairobi and I said ‘this does not make sense to me’. And this is where, maybe, on policy we differed,” Mr Wanjigi said.
Mr Wanjigi claimed he even proposed to the government to, instead, build an eight-lane highway from Mombasa to Malaba with the billions of taxpayers’ money, but his advice was ignored.
“That is where I left the stage,” he said.
Transport CS James Macharia said he would not comment on the claims.
"I will have no comment on such a matter that is being said so carelessly when there are records to show how the project was conceptualised," Mr Macharia said in a phone interview with the Nation.
The Jubilee administration built the railway at a cost of Sh327 billion between Mombasa and Nairobi and Sh150 billion between Nairobi and Naivasha, while the cost from Naivasha to Kisumu was projected to cost Sh380 billion before lack of funding caused a change of plans, resulting in upgrading of the meter gauge railway line.
The government has been reluctant to provide the SGR contract to the public and currently, Attorney General Paul Kihara is in court seeking to block attempts by activists calling for disclosure. The Court of Appeal last year also determined that procurement of SGR was done illegally, faulting among others, the project’s feasibility study.
