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City Hall too broke to repair roads


Estate roads may take a long time before they are repaired or new ones constructed with the city’s infrastructure sector massively underfunded despite having more than 2,000 kilometres to maintain.

According to chief officer at the sector Christine Ogut, 16.9 per cent of the city’s roads are in good condition and require about Sh502 million to maintain; 31.3 per cent are in fair condition and only need rehabilitation and recarpeting. This would cost Sh69.8 billion.

However, 51.8 per cent of the roads are in poor condition and would require Sh154 billion to be brought to acceptable levels.

In the recently released county budget estimates, roads were allocated Sh1.3 billion.

Roads distribution

Of the 2,977 kilometres of city roads, the Kenya Urban Roads Authority takes up about 600km, Kenya National Highways Authority 202km while the Kenya Rural Roads Authority also takes up some of the city roads.

This leaves City Hall with about 2,000km to maintain.

“Our biggest challenge is resources required to meet the needs of the citizens. These other agencies have gotten a big allocation for roads. When we compare that to what our budget ceiling is, then our impact cannot be felt on the ground,” said Eng Ogut.

The sector is the nerve centre of infrastructural development but a slashing of development funds to cater for recurrent expenditure has seen it perform below par in this financial year.

Part of this according to Eng Ogut stems from lower collection than was anticipated leaving her docket as the casualty.

“It would be proper if this sector had its own accounts and we are able to control our resources and procurement,” she added.