Workers who were retained by Africa Star Railway Operation Company (AfriStar) after the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) took over more SGR operations now claim they are yet to receive their wages ever since the transition took place.
A staff member who reached out to this blog frustratedly revealed that the operator’s management has offered no communication regarding the sensitive matter.
“Hi, kindly hide my identity.
Afristar Railway Operation company has not paid its retained workers after the transition, since the month started.
No notice or communication for the above.
Kindly blow the whistle on this so that Railways Company can see how the workers left after are suffering,” a source wrote to us.
KRC in 2017 contracted AfriStar, a subsidiary of China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), for SGR maintenance.
Under the contract, the operator had the right to manage the ticketing system and any associated software and hardware functions of the SGR.
The Kenyan government in 2020, however, reached a deal with AfriStar to take over operations and maintenance by May 2022 after it emerged that payments to the operator were unsustainable.
The deal would see Kenyan workers absorbed by KRC, while non-critical Chinese are faced out.
KRC has been handling ticketing, security and fuelling since March last year.
The cost of operating the SGR became a concern after data from the Transport ministry showed that taxpayers spent an average of Sh1 billion per month on the Mombasa-Nairobi railway alone.
Revenue collection by Afristar trailed its expenditure, which exposed taxpayers to a huge bill for sustaining operations.
To make matters worse, the operator was marred by reports of corruption and mismanagement.
Staff at the firm accused a little-known but corrupt manager, Sammy Gachuhi, of high-handedness.
They complained that Mr Gachuhi, who is the Deputy General Manager at Afristar, irregularly fired 6 staff members on trumped-up charges of incitement.
They were literally rounded up by Gachuhi, who forced them to delete their social media posts before dismissal.
Their only crime was accusing the Chinese-filled management of mistreatment.
Staff also blamed the Afristar Chinese bosses for favouritism towards people of their kind.
They decried discrimination by their fellow Africans for the pleasure of the Chinese, where watchmen and guards from Deeway Security Company, which is Chinese-owned, continually mistreated their kind and even prohibited African workers from passing through certain gates at the company.
