East Africa Economic Report

LAPSSET Corridor: New Impetus KENYA’S Long-term development Blueprint, Vision 2030, launched in 2007, is hurtling toward the end. And Kenyans are discussing a new blueprint- Beyond 2030. Now, it is time to review Vision 2030. Did it deliver? Is it a good foundation to build a new blueprint? Were there weaknesses? What were they? Can they be redeemed?  Vision 2030 “aimed to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income nation providing high quality of life for all its citizens by 2030. It was premised on three pillars Viz: Economic, Social, and Political. Anchored on Enablers and Macro foundations.” The target is defined. W e can now review it. Did Vision 2030 deliver?  According to the scorecard published by the Vision 2030 Secretariat, by 2024 significant progress had been made in all the pillars except the Economic Pillar. The Political Pillar, the least technical of the three, was 88.2 percent enforced. The Social pillar, incorporating education, Health, Clean...

  A Passenger  SGR train: Five hours to  Nairobi from Mombasa Finally! Kenya and Uganda have tightened the first bolts on the construction of the “Lunatic Express 2.0.” This marks the end of a six-year hiatus on the project.  The “Lunatic Express 2.0”, otherwise christened the Standard Gauge Railway, which had stalled on Kenya’s town of Naivasha will now extend to Kisumu and Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border. This is a section of the longer Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali railway, envisaged back in 2009 by the East Africa Community. The crossing into Kampala, Uganda is a major milestone on the project. The two countries are under pressure from other members of the community to complete this section so that they take it up from there. The US$ 5 billion, 500KM section is a game-changer in transport logistics in this region. It cuts travel time from Mombasa Port on the Kenyan coast to Kampala, 1200KM inland, to 24 hours - down from the current four-days to a week. ...

Nairobi Expressway: With the City CBD in the background e  When the American You Tuber, Ishowspeed, visited Africa last Month, live streaming his stunts, Americans were shocked. To them, Ishowspeed had demolished the narrative of an underdeveloped, poverty- stricken Africa.   The African story previously was a story of destitution, of people living in hovels, no water, no electricity, no cities, and no cars... blah blah! “Africa is a shithole continent,” Trump said. The Live streams of expressways, high-rise buildings, modern cars, happy, healthy, and energetic people, shocked Americans, -and destroyed the narrative. I hear the live streams have stirred interest on the continent, and tourism enquiries are rising. I leave that to tourist- arrivals data at the end of the year. My point here is to answer the question: How did we get here?    It’s a combination of factors, to wit: Geopolitics, the digital revolution, the emergence of China as the second-largest power hou...

The Tanzanian standard Gauge Train, which has been running for less than two years, has suffered frequent minor mishaps. Among these are frequent stoppages due to power outages.  However, over the last two months, these mishaps have escalated to include a derailment and service suspension due to a flooded river damaging the infrastructure. This has led to the public lashing out at the management, terming it incompetent. No Sir. The management is not incompetent. The problem lies elsewhere, and no Management, however competent, can deal with it. The mistakes were made at the design stage. The line is a level crossing line with few elevations. That is the problem, and I shall be brutally frank. It will persist for the life of the line. Around October 25 th , 2025, the train derailed at Ruvu station during the morning run from Dar-Es- Salaam to Dodoma. The management described the accident as an “operational hitch.” And On December 31st, 2025. The service was suspended as heavy ...

The Road Now  Finally! Construction of the 170 KM Rironi Mau summit road has begun. The road, a section of the arterial Northern Corridor - the economic lifeline of East Africa. Due to heavy traffic and rugged terrain, movement is slow. Traffic jams sometimes last more than 10 hours, and accidents are frequent. Consequently, its upgrade was long overdue.  The upgrade involves two roads being constructed simultaneously: The Rironi- Nakuru-Mau summit highway is 175 KM long and will cost a whopping US$863 million. The second, is the 58 KM Nairobi -Mai Mahiu –Naivasha highway for $678 Million.  In total, the two highways will cost a whopping US$1.5 billion.   The 175 KM Rironi Mau-Summit Expressway is a toll road on a 30 year PPP contract meaning, the contractor will design, Finance, build, operate, and maintain the highway for 28 years. After that,the road will revert to the government of Kenya. The work involves upgrading the single-lane road to four- lanes betwee...

One of the many Bridges Tanzania and Zambia have done it again. Back in the 1960s, they jointly conceived a 1860KM rail link between the two countries. That was the longest Railway line in Africa.   For countries that were hardly a decade into independence, that was a bold dream. They approached the West and the World Bank for financial support but the project was rejected as “economically unviable.” Undeterred, they jointly approached China to build a railway line linking the two countries. China agreed to a US$406 million interest-free loan to be paid in 30 years. For China, this was the largest foreign aid project in the cold war era, for China itself was struggling. In 1968, work on the turnkey project began.  The feasibility study debunked the West’s theory. In 1970, construction began and was completed in 1975, two years ahead of schedule. The line runs through a difficult terrain with mountain ranges, rivers, and the Rift Valley. It comprises 320 bridges, with a t...