Nairobi residents now want the City County to prioritize upgrading, maintaining and construction of new roads for better connectivity and ease of movement even as the Mike Sonko administration boasts of improved infrastructure development.For the past one year, Nairobi County government has been positioning itself as one of the devolved units with good infrastructure.
Nairobi governor Mike Sonko has for the final half of 2018 managed to achieve accessibility of transport as evident in the records. For the Six months ending December 2018, the County government of Nairobi injected a whopping KSh 886 million towards rehabilitation of roads in conjunction with Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA).
According to the Transport and Infrastructure CEC Mohammed Dagane, there is a total of 38 road projects going on in the city. Dagane said the projects will be completed in July 2019. He said the County government has done 5km of new drainage system and rehabilitated over 30km already.
His assurance comes as city dwellers express concern of clogged drainage that cause flooding whenever it rains, Previously, businesses have been paralyzed in most city estates following poor drainage system and this has been a great concern for residents who want the county to move with speed and address the situation before another rain season.
As part of efforts to enhance security within the city, the CEC affirmed that the County has installed over 1,500 new street lights.
To further repair and tarmac feeder roads, he said Embakasi East received KSh 380 million, Embakasi North KSh 163, Embakasi South KSh 288 million whereas Embakasi West received KSh 330 million. Kasarani received KSh 369 million, Makadara KSh 238 million while Ruaraka and Starehe received KSh 222 million and KSh 186 million respectively.
The money, he said, has been channeled to various infrastructural development projects that he said will be ready for use by July 2019. The CEC however cited poor weather conditions and politicians’ endless politicking about the development of roads as major impediments to the realization of road development.
“We could have already achieved 90% of County roads were it not that the recent rainy season,” he said. “Another major issue we have is people politicizing the everything,” he lamented.
Nairobi county has contributed a total of KSh 900 million to the road project. The project targets the road network in Eastlands area where most roads have been previously rendered impassable during the rainy season. This was further confirmed by Kura Director General Silas Kinoti, who told the Nairobi transport committee that all the 38 projects will be done in five months.
“Our target is to deliver quality work and that is why we are doing road by road. We are optimistic that all the 38 roads will be completed in five months,” Kinoti said
The authority has divided the project into three phases; a 32-kilometre, 25.5 kilometres and 22.8 kilometres road network. Three Chinese companies were awarded tenders for the three slots. The three are Stecol Corporation which was awarded KSh 950.6 million, China Roads and Bridges Corporation KSh1 billion and China Wu Yi Compnany KSh895.6 million for the project. The projects kicked off in September 2018 and a spot check by TUKO.co.ke learnt there had been no delays reported so far. However, there are mixed reactions from city residents with some heaping praises on the county for the efforts in infrastructure development while some disapprove of the same.
Most of those who expressed displeasure were in slum areas including Kibra, Kawangware and Mathare who said they are yet to see tangible solutions to the poor road network in their respective areas..