New contractor to build Itare dam

The remaining works at the stalled Sh28.9 billion worth Itare dam in Nakuru County will be sub-contracted to a third party after the current contractor filed for bankruptcy, Water Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui said.

In a ministerial statement at his Upper Hill office in Nairobi on Thursday, Mr Chelugui said the CMC di Ravenna of Italy will nominate another Italian company to execute the remaining job, without altering the initial costs.

The 57-metre-high dam with 28 million cubic metres storage, whose construction started on April 6, 2017, is 43 percent complete according to the ministry, and is touted to be a long-term solution to perennial water scarcity in Nakuru, Kuresoi, Molo, Njoro and Rongai.

“We have decided that the main contractor nominates a third party with the capacity to continue with the work,” he said.

They had a first option to allow CMC to continue under the current contract and a third option of terminating it altogether, but option two was found to be the most viable, considering the restrictive conditions of the contract signed between the government and the current contractor.

“Since we secured the funding from Italy, releasing the Italian company would mean we lose the funding too. We will just retain the contractor for the sake of it but we will agree that the sub-contractors implementing the project have the capacity," he said.