Kenya - RVR LOSING USD100,000 DAILY

[John Ashworth]

RVR LOSING USD100,000 DAILY
Thursday, 07 February 2008

According to Rift Valley Railways (RVR) managing director Roy Puffet quoted by Reuters on 4 February, the company has been losing $US100,000 daily (more than $2 million to date) since extensive vandalism disrupted the railway in the wave of violence following the elections at the end of December. On 18 January, protesters physically tore up a kilometre of main-line track at Kibera on the outskirts of Nairobi. Railworkers sent to repair the damage were threatened and the railway was warned that it would be destroyed again if repaired.

Restoring the line, which took nearly a week, together with other repairs, had cost $172,000 by the end of January, an RVR official told the Monitor (published in Kampala), but by 6 February, due to other obstructive action, trains were still not running. Long stretches of informal market stalls near the line were burned, making the railway impassable.

From Railways Africa