State says private engineers will oversee 10,000km road project

A project in which the government plans to tarmac 10,000 kilometres of roads across the country over the next five years will be supervised by independent engineers to ensure compliance with the contract terms.

The project will be implement under the annuity programme that is based on a Finance-Design-Build-Maintain and Transfer Contract model.

The Treasury will then repay the loans in equal instalments (annuity) over eight years, starting from the time the road section is completed.

Under this programme the government plans to build 2,000 kilometres of small roads mostly in rural areas, within the current financial year ending in June.

In the next fiscal year starting July this year, 3,000 kilometres made up of 80 per cent small roads and 20 per cent highways will be built. There are further plans to tarmac 5,000 kilometres of roads in the 2016/2017 financial year.

The Transport and Infrastructure ministry on Thursday kicked-off the recruitment of independent engineers to help manage the project to be implemented in three phases and divided in lots.

Call for bids

“The consultancy services to be provided by the independent engineer shall involve monitoring compliance with the terms of the project agreement by the parties to the contract during the concession period,” the ministry said in a call for bids that closes on April 17.

The projects are being implemented by the Kenya National Highways Authority (Kenha), Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura) and Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) and are intended to support the primary growth sectors of commerce, tourism, agriculture and rural production, and extractive industries.  

“The scope of the civil works will broadly include upgrading to paved standards of gravel and earth roads and rehabilitation or reconstruction of existing paved roads including bridges, culverts, road intersections, drains and the maintenance thereof,” the ministry further said.

The new road financing and construction model leaves taxpayers facing a doubling of the fuel levy to as much as Sh18 a litre.

The Kenya Roads Board (KRB) recently wrote to the Treasury proposing a tax of Sh6 per litre of diesel and petrol as a road annuity levy and an additional Sh3 per litre towards the fuel levy beginning July — effectively tripling of the fuel levy.

KRB — which collects and manages Kenya’s road maintenance levy fund (RMLF) — reckons that the current levy charged at Sh9 per litre, which was set in June 2006, is no longer feasible given the rise in raw materials, labour and transport costs, which has in turn increased the cost of building and maintaining roads.