To fund the Road Authorities or the County Governments?

Last Updated 13 years ago by Kenya Engineer

Debate has risen on who to receive the monies for the construction and maintenance of roads in the counties. Is it the county government or the three road authorities who have been responsible for the road works in the country?

The Cabinet Secretary for Roads, Transport and Infrastructure, Eng.S.Kamau appearing before the National Assembly committee on transport pointed that the funds meant for the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura), the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) and the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) were allocated to counties.

According to the Jubilee manifesto, they intend to abolish the KeRRA and KURA who deal with rural and urban roads respectively, and devolve management of secondary and minor roads to the counties.

MPs are however afraid that if the money for road development and maintenance is given to the county governments, it might result in the neglect of some and the politicization of the entire process.

The county governments according to Starehe MP, Maina Kamanda do not have the capacity to handle the already ongoing and planned road projects by the authorities and thus he advocated that the funds be given to them even as the devolution process is ongoing.

By not giving the authorities the money, many projects would be jeopardized most of which were budgeted by the authorities. KeRRA, for example, had a budget of Sh14.9 billion for the development of new roads and Sh20 million for maintenance in each of the 290 constituencies.

According to the 2013-2014 financial year, Ksh 97.9 billion was allocated for continued road expansion, upgrading and rehabilitation throughout the country .

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