Kenya’s $39 Billion Push for Roads, Dams and Finishing the ‘Train to Nowhere’
The president says new infrastructure can jump-start the economy, but voters are wary of higher taxes and mounting debt.
President William Ruto at a groundbreaking ceremony for an extension of the train past Narok.
Photographer: Xinhua/ShutterstockWhen construction of a new railway linking Kenya’s two biggest cities began in 2013, the project was hailed as a “historic milestone” that would transform East Africa. The route was to stretch almost 600 miles from the port of Mombasa, through the highland capital of Nairobi, to the shores of Lake Victoria and on to the Ugandan border. Today the tracks cover less than two-thirds of the way, and parts of the line see only three trains a week. Kenyans call it the “railway to nowhere.”
President William Ruto is betting a revival of the stalled project—part of a $39 billion infrastructure push he aims to unspool over the coming decade—will ensure he wins a second five-year term and cement his legacy. Within a generation the project can “move Kenya from what it is today to a first world country,” Ruto told supporters over cheers and tooting from plastic trumpets at a March rally in Narok, a city of 120,000 that’s a few miles from the current terminus. “This was never a railway to nowhere.”