THE DARK PHASE OF THE SGR IN MOMBASA

The Kenya Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), billed as the biggest transport infrastructure project in the country's economic history, seeks to provide inexpensive and efficient mobility of cargo and passengers.

As these positive changes were aimed by the government, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has negatively impacted the Mombasa City in the following ways:

Market Disruption
    With reduced travel time and costs via  trucks and lorries, coupled with safer travelling conditions, the Standard Gauge Railway has now become the best preferred mode of transport for passengers and cargo owners hence taking a huge percentage of them off roads.
Despite of the above positive impact, the aspects of the project has now diminished the business and loss of income for those who were working in this transport sector such as; trucks and bus owners, and job loss for drivers, turn boys and truck loaders.

Unemployment
    For the truck and bus drivers, turn boys and the truck loaders who were affected by the operation of the SGR, are now jobless following the decreased number of the tricks that used to transport the cargo to various places within and outside the country.
Hence this has reduce the Income per Capita.

Collapse of the Business
     Many business operations in Mombasa such as the ordinary hotels and cargo service centres were shutdown due to the inavailability of the customers who regularly camped at the hotel premises and those who and the foods that were transported from Mombasa via trucks. This on the other hand led to an increased number of the unemployment among the people in Mombasa.

Revenue
    Since many trucks are off roads, the Mombasa County Council  suffers a decrease in revenue that is collected each and every day as compared to when the trucks were still operating . As this continues to depreciate, it will greatly affect the county of Mombasa for not having adequate funds to run the county activities.

Never the less, The kenya Standard Gauge Railway has led many people in Mombasa especially those who were directly affected by the SGR project,  being unable to meet their daily needs as a result of unemployment and loss of jobs among the truck drivers, posing hardship in their living.

Since the SGR  continue operating  its daily activities, the general Economic  status of the Mombasa County has gone down affecting the growth of the town.