The William Ruto administration has signalled a shift from heavy investments in roads by the previous two regimes with expenditure from the government’s main account for 10 months plunging more than half.
The State Department of Infrastructure spent nearly Sh26.78 billion on projects from July 2022 to April 2023 period, according to the latest official data, the lowest in at least a decade.
The development expenditure by the department, primarily tasked with building roads and bridges, is Sh41.82 billion, or 60.97 percent, lower than Sh68.60 billion in a corresponding period in the year before.
The reduced expenditure, which excludes the portion funded by development partners, has come at a time President Ruto expressed shock at Sh900 billion in commitments for the roads sector by his predecessor’s administration.
Dr Ruto said his team has scaled down the commitments by nearly a quarter, or Sh220 billion, following consultations with road agencies — Kenya National Highways Authority, Kenya Urban Roads Authority and Kenya Rural Roads Authority.
“We have tried to cut it down. We have tried to cut some of the roads that have not started. But we remain with about Sh680 billion that we have to manage,” Dr Ruto told a joint media session on May 14.
In the mini-budget passed by lawmakers in late February, the development budget for the infrastructure docket was cut to Sh53.24 billion from Sh62.88 billion estimates by the predecessor regime.
Road infrastructure arguably gobbled the lion’s share of the budget under former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, but this came with the burden of debt load on taxpayers largely through loans contracted from China.
That attracted criticism from Dr Ruto’s key campaigns in the run-up to last year’s successful presidential bid, with the current Chief Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi reported to have infamously declared that “Kenyans don’t eat roads”.
Mr Kenyatta said in his last address during national celebrations that his administration had built more than 11,000 kilometres of tarmac roads since taking power in April 2013, claiming the additional network was nearly six times the kilometres put up by his three predecessors since independence.
Kipchumba Murkomen, the secretary for Roads, Transport and Public Works told lawmakers last April most projects are either undergoing slow implementation or have completely stopped largely due to cash constraints.
The contractors in the sector, he added, are owed Sh110 billion, with a further Sh35 billion in arrears to landowners whose parcels were acquired for road construction.
“We have negotiated with the Roads Annuity Fund, which has agreed to release Sh12 billion to us to pay some contractors,” Mr Murkomen said.
“I thank contractors and a number of banks that we have talked to and agreed to allow us to look for money. Some of these contractors could have been auctioned.”
