Row puts city at risk of heavy jams

A transport crisis is feared in the city due to a stand-off between the World Bank and the government over a company that won a Sh67 billion road building tender.

The WB has questioned the integrity of the Nairobi Motorway Group but the government yesterday responded with threats to cancel the WB-funded tender and reopen the bid.

Speaking to the Daily Nation on Monday, Roads minister Franklin Bett said the government would not allow the dispute to delay the upgrade of Uhuru Highway and the Southern Bypass.

“It (the row) is an issue outside the scope of the republic and the people of Kenya. We have been caught in the crossfire,” said Mr Bett in a phone interview.

He said the ministry had already delinked the Southern Bypass from the concession and work was set to begin “very soon”.

The minister said he met World Bank country director for Kenya Johannes Zutt two weeks ago and got assurances that the dispute would be resolved in due course to allow the construction to start.

Mr Zutt has flown to the WB headquarters in New York and will not be back in the next two weeks as the row persists with Strabag, one of the concessionaires in the consortium.

Housing & Construction Company, a subsidiary of Israel’s Shikun Binuy Arison Group, and Strabag, an Austrian-German company, won the concession to operate 106 kilometres of Kenya’s main highways.

As an incentive to the concessionaire, the government in March 2009 decided to cushion it from all tax liabilities.

The concessionaire was exempted from paying customs and excise duties, and value added tax on construction equipment and any goods needed to complete the job.

One of the stretches of the road in the deal, the Southern Bypass, starts at Kyumvi (the Machakos turnoff on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway) and runs all the way through Nairobi city centre to Rironi near Limuru.