By John Mutiso
President William Samoei Ruto has announced that construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) extension from Naivasha to Kisumu and onward to Malaba will officially begin in January 2026.
The President made the declaration during the launch of the Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit (A8) and Nairobi-Maai Mahiu-Naivasha Public-Private Partnership (PPP) road projects in Kiambu County, offering the clearest timeline yet for the long-awaited western expansion of the modern railway system.
“We will expand and upgrade our airports and ports, and beginning in January 2026, we shall extend the Standard Gauge Railway from Naivasha to Kisumu and onward to Malaba, closing the loop, connecting the region, and positioning Kenya as the heart of East Africa’s transport and logistics system,” President Ruto declared on November 28, 2025.
The extension covers Phase 2C (Naivasha-Kisumu) and Phase 3 (Kisumu-Malaba), segments that have experienced delays since the completion of the Nairobi-Naivasha stretch in 2019.
President Ruto contextualised the SGR extension within a broader shift in how Kenya will finance major infrastructure.
He criticised decades of dependence on limited funding options, saying projects were often trapped between competing pressures. “For decades, our country has been trapped between options that have held back progress,” he told the gathering, citing the traditional choices of draining the national budget, expanding borrowing, or accepting stagnation.
“Whenever we needed to undertake heavy and necessary infrastructural projects, we were presented with three choices… That was never an option; not for a country with our aspirations and our potential,” he stated.
The President highlighted upcoming dual-carriageway investments and the establishment of both a National Infrastructure Fund and a Sovereign Wealth Fund. He said these frameworks will enable Kenya to pursue large-scale development without relying heavily on debt.
“These infrastructure efforts will boost competitiveness, lower business costs, and connect Kenya more efficiently to regional and global markets,” he said.
The Malaba terminus will allow seamless rail integration with Uganda’s SGR network, which already stretches toward Kampala.
Once complete, the Mombasa-Malaba freight corridor will accelerate cargo movement between the port of Mombasa and landlocked states including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and eastern DRC.
President Ruto said the SGR and road upgrades form part of Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda. “This is how we deliver the vision… This is how we ensure that development is not a privilege, but a birthright,” he said.
