Businessman and politician Jimi Wanjigi has issued a stinging rebuke over the newly signed agreement between President William Ruto and Chinese President Xi Jinping, warning that Kenya risks sinking deeper into debt with little to show for it.
Speaking during an interview on Spice FM on Monday, Wanjigi questioned the economic logic behind extending the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Naivasha to Kisumu and Malaba — a project expected to cost Kenyan taxpayers an additional Sh17.8 billion.
“Where are the goods for this railway?” Wanjigi posed bluntly. “How many Kenyans actually use the SGR? As a country, we have far more urgent priorities.”
The controversial deal, signed during President Ruto’s recent state visit to China, also includes the construction of a new Kisumu Port and procurement of 35 locomotives, 724 wagons, and 64 passenger coaches.
The extension, branded as Phase 2B of the SGR, will cover 262.3 kilometers, with an additional 8.9-kilometer line connecting to the proposed port.
Wanjigi revisited the painful history of the SGR’s financing, warning that Kenya is still struggling under a mountain of loans taken to fund earlier phases of the railway, particularly the Mombasa–Naivasha line.
He revealed that the original SGR concept was far more modest — a Sh55 billion project to be driven largely by private investors, with Kenya Railways providing land as its stake.
However, Wanjigi claimed, the plan was mysteriously altered by state officials, ballooning the cost to an eye-watering Sh1.1 trillion.
“We contributed far more than necessary,” he lamented. “This was supposed to be a public-private partnership, but it became an outright government burden. We could have built the railway ourselves.”
According to Wanjigi, Chinese lenders like Exim Bank were originally set to finance 90 percent of the project, with Kenya contributing 10 percent. Instead, he alleges, taxpayers were left footing an overwhelming share of the costs, exacerbating the country’s debt load.
