Industry

Portland Cement loses 131 acres to standard gauge railway

uk

President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta during the launch of the standard gauge railway line in Mombasa last year. FILE

NSE-listed cement maker EAPCC is among companies and individuals set to surrender their land to pave the way for construction of the standard gauge railway (SGR).

A notice published on Friday shows East African Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) stands to lose about 131 acres of its land to the government to make way for the 609-kilometre railway line that will connect Mombasa and Nairobi.

The Friday notice listed hundreds of private land owners that will be paid to give up their land for the Sh319 billion project, which is expected to kick off in October.

“The National Land Commission (NLC) gives notice that the government intends to acquire the following parcels of land for Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) for the construction of Mombasa-Nairobi SGR in Taita-Taveta, Makueni, Kajiado and Machakos counties,” the notice states in part.

The Treasury has budgeted Sh9 billion for the compulsory acquisition of 11,000 acres of land to give way for the new railway that will extend to Uganda and Rwanda. Other institutions that will also lose their land include Mwavumbo Group Ranch (242 acres), Agricultural Settlement Trust (132.6 acres), Ilmamen Group Ranch (141.8 acres).

An acre of land in the EAPCC area is retailing for as much as Sh4 million, meaning that the cement maker could soon get as much as Sh500 million from the government. The construction of the new standard gauge railway, which will supplement the current slower, narrow gauge network that is operated by Rift Valley Railways, will run for 42 months.

The government expects that 60 per cent of the land will be acquired by August and the remainder in December, placing billions of shillings in the hands of private investors. The KRC managing director Atanas Maina recently stated that the company had done mapping and surveying of the land to be compulsorily acquired by the State.

“We are now identifying the private land owners as well as holding discussions with the Kenya Wildlife Service over 130km of wildlife conservation land,” he said.

Last week, the SGR project manager at KRC, Solomon Ouna, was quoted in the press as saying the land acquisition has “not been very friendly” but they would still conclude it. Business Daily’s attempts to get a comment from Portland Cement did not bear fruit.

The decision to award the contract to the China Road and Bridge Corporation was criticised by a section of MPs who maintained that the tenders were not floated competitively.
Both the Parliament’s transport and public investment committees later cleared the project.

READ: Fresh row hits standard gauge rail plan