Kenya Railways Corporation MD Philip Mainga. PHOTO | SILA KIPLAGAT | NMG
The Kenya Railways Corporation, in what seems to be Business Daily Africa’s usual corporate copy and paste press releases, has confirmed that they are ready for the takeover of the Standard Gauge Railway operations from Afristar.
This seems to be Kenya Railways Corporation’s response to our hard-hitting article that we run three days ago, exposing how senior African managers at the Chinese run firm Afristar were frustrating the take-over by the Kenya Railways Corporation.
In our article, one of our many highly placed sources revealed many details as quoted below.
” Therefore, this cabal has formed an alliance with the Chinese to be used to offer interviews and briefings to the KRC Board during the transition preparedness visits that the Kenyan staff haven’t been fully trained and are incapable of taking over operations scheduled for June this year to push the agenda of AFRISTAR to have their expensive contract extended for a further 5 years”
Racist Chinese firm Afristar devises ways to prevent Kenya Railways SGR operations takeover
Mr Mainga the KRC managing director also sought to downplay fears that Kenyan workers currently stationed at AfriStar have not been fully trained to take over SGR operations come June. This has been the narrative of the Racist Chinese running the SGR as exposed in many of our articles.
Maybe to counter our article allegations that KRC would not absorb some corrupt staffers like Sammy Gichuhi who is blacklisted by the World Bank, Mr Mainga says they’ll absorb all the African staffers.
Gachuhi is blacklisted by the World Bank for squandering money while working at the now-defunct Rift Valley Railways (RVR). He was thrown out by Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC). It will be interesting to see how the same Kenya Railways will absorb him.
Sammy Karuga Gachuhi – Deputy General Manager
Mr Mainga, in an interview on Thursday, a day after our article, told Business Daily that the Kenya Railways Corporation has now assumed the loading and offloading functions from Africa Star Railway Operation Company and in terms of percentages we can say that we are now at 60 per cent overall.
But Kenyans have raised doubts about the future of SGR with Kenyans as the managers but many say it should be given a shot after evidence linked Afristar to racism and discrimination of Kenyans.
The KRC managing director Mr Mainga has also been linked to corruption and serious integrity scandals in the past. A few months ago, the Kenya Leadership and Integrity Network wrote to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) boss Twalib Mbarak to start investigations over what they termed as favouritism at Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC).
But the managing director has not explained how he will transform the SGR despite the corruption and mismanagement that has been the order of the day at Kenya Railways.
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