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SGR Earns Government 1 Billion Shillings in One Year

BY Soko Directory Team · May 31, 2018 11:05 am

The Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has earned the government 1 billion shillings in the first year of operations according to the Kenya Railways management.

In one year, SGR has made 1,144 trips between Mombasa and Nairobi with travelers paying between 700 and 3,000 shillings for the economy and first class respectively.

Kenya Railways says that in a period of one year, the lowest occupancy was at 85 percent with more than 90 percent of the trips being on full occupancy.

The management says that a total of 1.3 million passengers have used the services of SGR in the past one year with the numbers expected to rise.

SGR still remains one of Kenya’s most expensive infrastructure, having consumed 330 billion shillings, most of which are in form of loans that have to be paid back.

The affordable fares of 700 shillings often saw the economy classes fully booked. SGR has however increased the fare to 1,000 shillings but the management says that won’t affect the number of people using the train.

The SGR passenger section seems to be doing greater that the cargo section which many people see as one that is dead on arrival.

Cargo transporters have not been using the SGR cargo train despite the government lowering the charges to as little as 10,000 shillings for some containers.

The government had planned to use the SGR cargo to transport between 30 to 40 percent of cargo but this has proved to be futile.

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