KACC raises alert over poor road construction

The Kenya Anti-corruption Commission on Wednesday raised a red flag over the shoddy work being done by road contractors.

Consequently, the anti graft body has hired six engineers to work Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) to monitor quality countrywide.

KACC Advisory Board Chairman Okong’o Omogeni said the Commission, in partnership with KeNHA, will be monitoring any construction work undertaken by the contractors to ensure perfection..

“We want to ask the contractors to be watchful on any work they undertake because we will not be tolerating substandard work as partners,” Mr Omogeni said.

“The Commission in partnership with the authority will also prosecute those contractors who earn themselves millions of shillings from doing a shoddy job,” he added.

The former LSK chairman spoke at Ikonge market in North Mugirango/Borabu constituency on Wednesday during an inspection tour of Chepilat-Chabera road that is set for construction.

Mr Omogeni was accompanying a team of engineers from Nairobi led by KeNHA director General Engineer Meshack Kidenda and the Board chairlady Annah Muriithi.

Engineer Kidenda said the design of the road was done in 2007, saying construction work would have begun but because of lack of funds, it will commence in the next financial year.

However, Engineer Kidenda said they will do maintenance on the road to ease transportation.

“We will move fast to tarmac this road because of the nature of activities taking place in the region but in the meantime we are going to do maintenance as we wait for the funds,” Eng Kidenda said.

On the Kisii-Keroka road, the Engineer said the authority had allocated Sh270 million for its reconstruction and work had begun.

“We will begin with the reconstruction of the first seven kilometres where the road is extensively damaged before we continue to Keroka,” he said.

Among other roads the team of engineers inspected during their two day exercise are Migori-Rongo, Kisii-Kilgoris, Nyangusu-Keroka , Litein-Bomet, Rongo-Ogembo and Chabera-Kisii.

The engineer said the authority was concerned about the narrowness of Kisii-Migori road, and they were in the process of expanding it to ease flow of traffic.

“We want to assure the public that we are concerned about the poor state of roads, and that is why we are here today. We will be giving priority to the needy cases,” he said.

The engineer at the same time asked resident engineer Daniel Cherono to speed up the construction of Daraja Moja Bridge because some of the by-passes used have been damaged