East Africa Economic Report

  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 ...