The length of new roads constructed in the last two financial years has fallen by nearly 70 percent, reflecting President William Ruto’s major shift from the heavy investments in infrastructure development by his two successive predecessors.
State-run road agencies — the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura), and the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) — constructed a combined 1,037 kilometres of roads in the first two financial years under President Ruto’s administration.
The number of kilometres of roads built in the two review years ended June 2024 is 68.67 percent short of the 3,310km constructed during the last two years of former president Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, an analysis of data from the State Department for Roads shows.
The scale-down aligns with Dr Ruto’s pledge to scale down investments in roads after a decade of heavy budgetary allocations to roads by his two predecessors — Mr Kenyatta and the late Mwai Kibaki.
Upon taking power, Dr Ruto expressed shock at Sh900 billion in commitments for the roads sector in the budget he inherited from Mr Kenyatta’s regime (for the financial year ending June 2023).
“We have tried to cut it down; we have tried to cut some of the roads that have not started. But we remain with about Sh680 billion that we have to manage,” the Kenyan leader said on May 14, 2023.
The Roads Department’s data shows Kenya put up 495km in the first year of Dr Ruto’s reign, rising to 542km last fiscal year ended June 2024.
The new roads constructed underperformed in the two years underperformed a target of 1,144km, mirroring deep budget cuts for the sector which got the bulk of funds in the past.
“The target [was] not achieved due to slowed progress on contracted works,” the Roads Department says in the budget progress report presented to the National Treasury.
Analysis of actual development expenditure from the government’s main account (exchequer) shows disbursements to the Roads department, primarily for roads and bridges, have nearly halved in Ruto’s first two financial years compared to the last two years under his predecessor.
Expenditure on capital projects for the road sector, excluding the portion funded by development partners, amounted to Sh90.84 billion in the fiscal year ended June 2023, more than having to Sh43.08 billion last financial year.
That represents a deep cut from Sh128.65 billion during Mr Kenyatta’s final budget in office and Sh129.75 billion in the prior year ended June 2021.
The Treasury says implementation of the road programmes and projects is key in “enhancing domestic and regional connectivity, boosting rural productivity, improving urban informal settlements, and reducing urban congestion”.
Road infrastructure arguably gobbled the lion’s share of the annual budget under former president Kenyatta’s administration, but this came with the burden of debt load on taxpayers largely through loans contracted from China.
The huge debt load toward infrastructure development attracted criticism from Dr Ruto’s campaign in the run-up to his successful presidential bid, with the current Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi at one point even infamously declaring that “Kenyans don’t eat roads”.
Mr Kenyatta said in his last address during national celebrations that his administration had built more than 11,000km of tarmac roads since taking power in April 2013, claiming the additional network was nearly six times the kilometres put up by his three predecessors since independence.
“The naysayers said that we should not invest so heavily in infrastructure because people don’t eat roads and floating bridges,” the former president said on June 1, 2022. “I refused their pessimism because I know what a new road means to the farmer who has for decades been unable to get their produce quickly to the market.”
