Today Okoa Mombasa and Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI) are publishing a long-hidden study that reveals how Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) operations have ravaged Mombasa’s economy. Mombasa County commissioned the study, but deemed it “classified,” hiding it from public view for the past year.
The study contains hundreds of pages, never seen before by members of the public or the media, showing the devastation the SGR has brought to the port city.
Mombasa County government contracted University of Nairobi (UoN) to study the “Social-Economic Impact of Operationalization of the Standard Gauge Railway on the Port City of Mombasa”.
Exactly a year after UoN handed in the report, the county is yet to make it public. The county only released scanty details of the study’s findings during the handover, instead opting to hide much critical information.
This research, however, was funded by taxpayers’ money, and is thus a public document. Its entire contents ought to have been published immediately. But it never happened.
It’s not clear why the county chose to closely guard findings of the report even when it could have been used as evidence in a suit that challenges SGR operations and its impact on Mombasa economy.
We used our means to get the report.
And so today, we are declassifying it, giving you full details of the entire study that the county – for whatever reasons – failed to publish.
