President Uhuru Kenyatta is on Tuesday set to officially launch the operations of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Mombasa that will be the first of its kind in the country. As a result, Kenya will become the first nation in East Africa region to have a modernized railway line.
According to the Kenya Railways Managing Director Atanas Maina, the train operating on the SGR will have a capacity of 1200 passengers. When West Media team visited the Mombasa Terminus on Monday, Kenya Railways management was finalizing the preparation for the launch.
Rose Kagai, one of the Kenyans who secured a job at the terminus said the launch of the passengers’ train is a blessing to many of the youths in the region as its a window job opportunity.
“This will create job opportunities for many people in the region when they started the contraction I came here to seek for employment and by a good chance, I secured one and I have been working here since then,” she said.
When Jubilee regime was elected in 2013, modernization of transport system in the country was one of their major priority with the railway line being launched two months into another general election.
During the 2013 campaign, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto assured Kenyans that if elected they would revolutionize the Rail industry.
The current rail line in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania was built almost hundred years ago by the British Government.
Rehemah Abudala, a casual worker at the terminal wants the national government and the County government to work together and ensure the locals do not miss out on employment opportunities that will come with the Wednesday’s launch.
“What we want is for the management to ensure that they also recruit people from this region, we will feel bad if all those seating in the big offices in that building are outsiders while us the natives we are left out,” she said, “We don’t want to be just messengers and cleaners but we also want the white collar jobs.”
Once the launch is done and operations normalize, the SGR is likely to be one of the major economic drivers in the country especially in the movement of goods and passengers from Mombasa to Nairobi.
President Kenyatta and other top government officials are scheduled to be among the first passengers to enjoy a ride on the SGR train from Mombasa to Nairobi on Wednesday. A journey that Kenya Railways has said it will take approximately five hours to cover, which is about 400 kilometres between the two cities.