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Firms get Sh450m to move cables on Nairobi-Mau road

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The State will spend Sh450 million to relocate fibre optic cables from the Sh160billion Nairobi-Mau Summit highway construction corridor.

The ICT ministry has picked four firms to reroute the Internet cables in the next six weeks to pave the way for the construction of the 234 kiometre highway starting September.

The relocation of the optic cable will be in four lots — Rironi–Naivasha via Mai Mahiu, Rironi –Naivasha, Naivasha–Nakuru, and Nakuru-Mau Summit.

“The contractors for this project will be working with a strict timeline of six weeks to pave the way for the dual carriage that is due to commence in September this year,” said Jerome Ochieng, PS at the State Department of ICT.

Adrian Kenya — one of the firms that won the contract — yesterday held a groundbreaking ceremony with officials from the State Department of ICT and Innovation to officially launch the relocation process.

The engineering company, which provides technology and infrastructure solutions, won the contract to design, install, commission, and maintain the fibre optic cable for the Rironi-Naivasha section. This will be at about Sh105 million.

“We are proud as a Kenyan company to be bringing together our engineering and project management expertise to deliver on this project. In our execution, we shall employ approximately 350 youth from the regions where the project will take place,” said Benard Njoroge, managing director at Adrian Kenya.

One of the key ICT infrastructures running along the road is the National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (Nofbi) project that started in 2005 in State’s race to connect all major towns in the country with high-speed broadband fibre.

Currently, Nofbi fibre optic ring passes through 58 towns in 35 counties across Kenya, making it a key Internet infrastructure in the country.

The new design will integrate to Nofbi and connect to all government sites and institutions along the road as well as to the existing licensed internet service providers and telcos along the road.

A French consortium made up of Vinci Highways SAS, Meridian Infrastructure Africa Fund, and Vinci Concessions SAS was last year awarded the contract that will see the road expanded into a four-lane dual carriageway through a Public-Private Partnership model.