State tightens grip on roads control, counties up in arms

The tussle between the county and national governments over the management of roads could escalate further following plans by the Transport ministry to issue guidelines that will determine the contractors governors are allowed to hire.

Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia will this week publish new guidelines that will further reduce the control of roads from counties.

The battle for control, which has been going on since 2013, was reignited this week when the ministry announced it would re-classify roads and put most of them under the national government.

The CS argues this will enable Kenyans to get value for their tax by eliminating rogue contractors who are constructing poor quality roads by using technologies that have not been approved by the government.

“We have seen certain counties coming up with roads constructed by contractors from other countries or using techniques and technologies which they argue are cheaper but do not guarantee the standard lifespan of roads,” he told the Sunday Nation.

“We want all contractors being hired by the counties for road construction to be cleared by the National government because we are seeing a lot of quacks coming up. There is no reason why a county wakes up one day and determines this road will be constructed this way and the next day decides a different method for another road,” he argued.

Embu, Meru and Samburu counties have in the last two years adopted the use of probase technology.

The technology from Probase International, a Malaysian firm is said to cost Sh30 million for a kilometre of road while it costs between Sh80 million to Sh120 million using tarmac which has traditionally been used in the country.

RECLASSIFICATION
Machakos too has also restructured its construction methods by splitting roads into very small sections and awarding tenders to different contractors to speed up construction.

Last week, governors and the national government engaged in a war of words over the reclassification of roads.

Under guidelines gazzetted on Thursday, counties now only control class D, E and lower roads which shopping centres to sub-county headquarters while classes A, B and C that make up 39,995kms are under the national government through the Kenya National Highways Management Authority (KeNHA).

Class A roads link centres of international importance and cross international boundaries.

They terminate at international ports or airports.

Class B roads also known as national trunk roads link nationally important centres and pass through more than one county while class C roads link urban centres or counties with each other.

The move to reclassify the roads was necessitated by a court order by Justice Mumbi Ngugi in December that gave the government 90 days to do so.

“We have a judgment in place saying all roads, class D and below are county roads so this attempted reclassification is illegal,” Council of Governor’s chairman Peter Munya told the Sunday Nation.

A Bill tabled by Majority Leader Adan Duale that was supposed to reclassify the roads into 15 classes and put to end the stalemate has gone through the first reading.

If the Roads Bill 2015 becomes law, counties will get 28pc of the revenue collected by the Kenya Roads Board as fuel levy. 

KENHA will get 40pc while Kenya National Secondary Roads Authority (KENSRA) which is supposed to take over the roles of Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KURA) gets 32 percent of the funds.