(Photo: China Daily)
Four local staff members have been appointed manager or deputy manager of a Kenyan railway operations company.
The appointments were made during a ceremony at the Kenyan office of the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) on Saturday.
This is the first time Kenya's Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway's operations company has awarded local staff members such senior positions, according to Li Jiuping, general manager of the Africa Star Railway Operation Company, a CRBC subsidiary also known as Afristar,
"The appointment is aimed at further accelerating the localization process and raising localization quality levels.
"It will also lay a solid foundation for the company's localization and globalization," said Li.
A representative of the newly appointed mangers, Sammy Gachuhi, deputy general manager of Afristar, expressed his gratitude to the Chinese management team and voiced his commitment to run the company soundly.
"We are fully dedicated to the vision, mission, and values of the company and ensuring that we provide safe and secure services with an economic mindset.
"We are determined to working with the government in its Big Four Agenda and Vision 2030 through efficient and dependable standard gauge railway operations and maintenance," said Gachuhi.
To ensure fairness and transparency in recruitment, Afristar advertised the vacancies in local newspapers and its own website in advance.
A total of 130 candidates submitted applications, among whom 12 passed the first round of selection and were interviewed by a panel of five senior managers on August 31.
Along with Gachuhi, the other successful candidates are David Mug, Olivia Mengich and Diana Kimani, who were named manager of freight marketing, deputy manager of corporate culture and deputy manager of passenger transport, respectively.
According to Li, there have been more than 200 Kenyan employees have served in the leadership of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR operation company, ranking from department leaders to company management positions.
The general manager also said that the company's localization rate has reached 80 percent among the 3,453 employees, which suggests that phase one of the SGR project will meet its promise of 90 percent localization by 2022.
In some departments, the localization goal has already been met
The localization rate in the passenger transport fleet for example has already reached 98 percent.
According to the contract between the operation company and the Kenya Railways Corporation, owner of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR, Afristar, is responsible for the operation, maintenance and service management of the 480-kilometer SGR for 10 years starting from May 31, 2017.
After this period, local Kenyans will take over the operation of the SGR.
