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The volume of cargo transported by Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) went up by 182, 636 tonnes in July to hit 543,944 tonnes compared to a similar period last year.

The growth has been attributed to an improvement in the SGR cargo off-take from the Port of Mombasa.

Data from Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) and Afristar, the SGR operator, shows that July registered the highest volumes of cargo transported on SGR this year after it moved 543,944 tonnes of cargo, compared to 361,308 tonnes moved over the same period last year.

Philip Mainga, KRC managing director said the sustained performance has been achieved due to close working relationship by government agencies that include KRC, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and other cargo intervening agencies.

 Impressive interaction

“Joint marketing both on local and transit markets has been sustained, with the recent visit by key stakeholders from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), both to Mombasa Port and the two Inland Container Depots with impressive interaction feedback,” he said.

Kenya Railways said that in the month, 267 trains from Mombasa moved 22,394 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) of imports and 319,906 tonnes of conventional cargo of various products that include wheat, clinker, rice, sugar and steel for delivery to the two Inland Container Depots at Nairobi and Naivasha.

This is a huge improvement compared to the same period last year, when 175 trains moved 19,346 TEUs and 258,589 tonnes of conventional cargo.

Delivery of cargo

KRC has been working towards offering an end-to-end rail delivery of cargo from Mombasa to the Ugandan ports of Jinja and Port Bell through Kisumu port vessels, and the direct mainline through Naivasha-Malaba-Kampala, which is already in operation.

The month saw sustained ex-hook deliveries, loading of containers direct from discharging vessels and quick coordination on connection up direction to both Inland Container Depots of Nairobi and Naivasha for both local and transit markets.

This growth momentum in cargo volumes has been sustained into August. Over the last two weeks, loading of Kenya Tea Development Agency

(KTDA) fertiliser that had 40,500 tonnes has successfully been loaded directly from discharging vessels and moved to Nairobi for onward delivery to farmers throughout the Country.

The SGR freight service moved 2,940,292 tonnes of cargo in 2018, 4,159,605 tonnes in 2019, 4,410,904 tonnes in 2020, 5,407,406 tonnes in 2021 and 3,520,795 tonnes as of July 2022.

The total growth in tonnage has increased from 4,009,703 in the Financial Year 2018/2019 to 5,666,375 in the Financial Year 2021-2022.

Overall, there has been a tremendous growth in the SGR freight services volumes since its inception in January 2018.

However, the move by new president William Ruto is expected to deal the SGR operations a blow after the head of state announced that cargo clearance will be reverted back to Mombasa.