The Cabinet on Monday, approved the Railway Amendment Bill 2024 that seeks to split the Kenya Railways into three.
Cabinet, following a meeting chaired by President William Ruto, resolved that this was one of the ways to give Kenya a competitive edge in the East African region and enhance efficiency.
"To fortify Kenya as a regional logistics hub, the Cabinet approved the Railway Amendment Bill 2024 that aims at initiating new ways of running railways and separating the business of freight, commuter, and land development," the Cabinet dispatch read in part.
One of the justifications the cabinet gave for the move is that Kenya Railways holds huge tracts of land yet most of the parcels lie idle.
With the approval of the Railway Amendment Bill 2024, the idle land will be used to develop railway cities in various parts of the country.
In February 2023, Kenya Railways announced that construction of Phase 1 of the Nairobi Railways City expected to cost Ksh12 billion had begun.
Following the Cabinet's latest approval, this will be expanded to other parts of the country where the railway line snakes through.
"The Bill proposes that the private sector, investors, and even county governments run the railway cities. In such cases, Kenya Railways will become a regulator," the Cabinet dispatch expounded.
The Nairobi Railway City is a multimodal, transit-oriented, and urban development project boasting a new Nairobi Central Railway station and a public square.
Other major cities and towns that could see the development of their railway cities include Mombasa, Athi River, Naivasha, and Kisumu.
The handing over of thousands of acres of prime land to the private sector for the development of the cities will raise fears of land grabbing.
Already, the Nairobi project has taken 425 acres of prime land within the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD).
