These Chinese guys building the Phase 2A of SGR from Nairobi to Suswa are an awesome lot. I wish Kenyan contractors could borrow a leaf from them.

The main contractor is 1 multinational company. Once the contract has bee awarded to him, he subcontracts specialist contractors who are experts in certain fields. It might be hard to believe but the entire 123 Kilometers from Nairobi to Suswa is being built by entirely different companies from different parts of China. The members of staff from each of the 8 companies do not even know each other.

What the main contractor did was to source for specialist contractors from China. The guys working on the tunnel are known to be tunnel experts and are entirely outsourced.

The guys working on the flat undulating landscapes of Suswa are reknown for their earthworks prowess. For instance, near the Mai Mahiu Pipeline terminal, it was discovered that the winds are strong there and the soil is loose, as such, the area will require some massive culverts dug very deeply to withstand the looseness of the soil. A culvert specialist was sought.

Each company is given its section to build and lay. Using high technology machines, all the 8 sections must eventually meet harmoniusly despite being built differently.

Once each section have build their part, there is now a company that is a specialist in laying the rails. This is what they specialize in in entirety. They will lay the tracks and test the smoothness and everything.

At the end of the day, we have about 9 different teams synergizing their efforts and the end product is something very admirable. This is a good thing and I think Kenyan contractors should adopt such systems of delegating specialist requirements and outsourcing.

And Chinese by the way, they are so technologically advanced and accurate that the pillars that you see, the piers, they are constructed in extremely straight lines to reduce vibration effect to the accuracy of 0.01 millimeters. Once the piers have been constructed, there are machines that are used to monitor them to see if they will move even 0.1 of a millimeter. I understand that during the Mombasa construction, there was one pillar that shifted by 1.2 centimeters after construction. On noticing this, the whole pier had to be demolished and rebuilt again.

Finally, tuwe hardworking like those Chinese. Those guys work from 6 AM in the morning at times upto 10 PM usiku.