Rift Valley Railways Consortium

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The Rift Valley Railways Consortium (RVRC) is a consortium that has been established to manage the parastatal railways of Kenya and Uganda.

The consortium won the bid for private management of the century-old Kenya-Uganda railway in 2005. The railway line, derided as the 'Lunatic Line' by a critical British press during its construction^[1] (and still referred to colloquially as the 'Lunatic Express' even to the current day), runs some 900 kilometres (580 miles) from Kenya's Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, through Nairobi, and up the Rift Valley to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria.^[2]

RVRC is led by Sheltam Rail Corporation of Sheltam Trade Close Corporation (STCC) of South Africa that has experience with management of other African railways. Minor partners of the consortium are Kenya’s Prime Fuels (15%), Mirambo Holdings of Tanzania (10%) and Comazar (10%) and the CDIO Institute for Africa Development Trust (4%), both of South Africa.^[3] The consortium plans to invest in the railway system, upgrade it, reduce inefficiencies, utilize a smaller work force, and generate an annual concession fee of 11.1% in each country. In addition it will pay 1 million dollar each year for the passenger service concession in Kenya.

On July 28, 2006 the East African Standard reported that the take-over, originally planned for August 1, 2006, was postponed to November 1, 2006.^[4] This operational take-over took place in November and is scheduled to last for 25 years.^[2]

The 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis included destructive riots that blocked and partly destoyed the rail system between Kenya and Uganda leading to difficulties in supply. Further, destruction and loss of income led to significant financial losses.^[5]