Passengers travelling on the standard gauge railway (SGR) train between Nairobi and Mombasa will no longer be allowed to reschedule travel times as the service operator moves to tame ticket fraud.
Kenya Railways Corporation says rescheduling of travel time has been stopped with immediate effect.
The agency will, however, continue to allow passengers to cancel tickets when they visit the terminus in person before the train departs. Ticket cancellation will, however, attract a 20 per cent charge on the ticket price.
No profits have been made since June of last year. The situation got worse last November when the police unravelled a cartel operating an SGR ticket scandal. Three Chinese officials and four Kenyans were arrested.
The arrests were made by sleuths from the office of the Director of Criminal Investigation after the Chinese officials attempted to bribe the detectives with Sh500,000 to stop the investigations.
At the time, the Mombasa Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) boss George Ojowi revealed that all the seven were employees of the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) that manages the SGR
Sources further claimed that approximately Sh1 million of SGR ticket money was stolen daily by the cartels.
One of the avenues used by the cartels involves deliberate manipulation of the booking system to get access to the revenues.
“The scheme also involves creating refunds for tickets already sold and issued to passengers on board and diverting the refunds elsewhere,” said the sleuths then.
