Skip to main content

Kenya plans road toll tenders

Kenya plans to start tendering in May for toll-road contracts estimated by the government to be worth $2 billion to improve the efficiency of the East African nation’s biggest commercial routes, according to Bloomberg. The contracts will be in addition to the 45 deals worth about US$3.2 billion that the government will start awarding as early as next week, to double the nation’s paved-road network through an annuity program. The government is planning to introduce five toll projects covering about 800 kilom
March 25, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
RSSKenya plans to start tendering in May for toll-road contracts estimated by the government to be worth $2 billion to improve the efficiency of the East African nation’s biggest commercial routes, according to Bloomberg.

The contracts will be in addition to the 45 deals worth about US$3.2 billion that the government will start awarding as early as next week, to double the nation’s paved-road network through an annuity program.

The government is planning to introduce five toll projects covering about 800 kilometres (500 miles), including a new 482-kilometre dual-carriage highway between the port city of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi, Stanley Kamau, director of the Public Private Partnership Unit at the Treasury, said in an interview this week.

Kenya is retaining 5019 PricewaterhouseCoopers to advise on the development and maintenance of the Nairobi-Mombasa highway, while it hired Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats of India for the same scope of work for a new 176-kilometre highway connecting the capital to the south-western city of Nakuru. Intercontinental consultants will also advise on the operation and maintenance of the 80-kilometer Nairobi-Thika road, according to the Treasury.

The Treasury is drawing from a US$40-million World Bank loan to carry out feasibility studies for the projects and partly finance land acquisition.

Kenya is seeking funds from private sources to support its plans expand transport infrastructure and create a regional transportation hub that will help it accelerate economic growth to 10 percent by 2017 from 5.4 percent last year.

“With the private sector, we can do what government aspires for in infrastructure development faster, than when relying on public funds alone,” Kamau said. “We should have toll guidelines by April, then start the tendering process.”

John Musonik, infrastructure principal secretary at the Transport Ministry said winners of the first contracts under the road annuity program could be announced next week. The government is setting up a Road Annuity Fund to expedite construction of roads in a country where less than 10 per cent of the 161,000-kilometer network is paved, according to the Kenya Roads Board.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Use tolling to help rebuild interstate highways
    August 21, 2014
    Following the passage of the short-term Highway Trust Fund bill, Patrick Jones, CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, writing in Roll Call, writes that states should now be focused on capitalising on a key part of the Grow America Act, which will lift the ban on interstate tolling, allowing states to determine how to fund reconstruction of interstate highways. He says that now that Congress has ‘patched’ the Highway Trust Fund to save it from insolvency, it is time to get some
  • Funding shortfall for US Interstate upgrades
    May 11, 2012
    Andrew Bardin Williams investigates tolling on the federal Interstate system as maintenance and upgrade requirements increasingly outpace funding The I-95 corridor through North Carolina is one of the most heavy trafficked interstates in the US, seeing upwards of 46,000 vehicles per day in some stretches-and North Carolina’s Department of Transportation (NCDOT) estimates this number will to rise to 98,000 vehicles per day by 2040. Along with the rest of the federal interstate system, the North Carolina str
  • IBTTA responds to sustainable transportation funding report
    December 4, 2014
    The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA has responded to a new report released by the Eno Center for Transportation. How We Pay for Transportation: The Life and Death of the Highway Trust Fund looks at the current political, economic and legal forces behind the US Highway Trust Fund, including an examination of other countries and their lessons on providing long term sustainable funding for transportation. Patrick D. Jones, IBTTA executive director and CEO, said: “We salute the
  • NYC transit system five-year plan rejected
    October 10, 2014
    The five-member New York State Capital Program Review Board has vetoed the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 2015–2019 MTA Capital Plan which the MTA said would renew, enhance and expand the transportation network with a US$32 billion investment. The largest element of the program is safety and reliability projects worth US$22.2 billion to renew the MTA’s mass transit network. It also proposes investing US$4.3 billion in new technology, communications systems and railroad infrastructur