2011: The road ahead

Stephen Mudiari | NATION Traffic flows near Safari Park Hotel on a section of the expanded Thika Road, one of the showpiece infrastructure projects expected to be completed in 2011.  

By SAMWEL KUMBA skumba@ke.nationmedia.comPosted Friday, December 31 2010 at 21:00

In Summary

• Kenyans usher in the New Year with optimism that reforms and the economic gains realised last year will lead to better times in 2011.
• A 12-lane superhighway, proposed railway line and the Lamu Port fill up the government’s plate for 2011

The year 2011 will mark another milestone for the government in the infrastructure sector as some big projects are expected to be commissioned.

The coalition government has been rated highly, going by the number of finished and ongoing projects.

Transport minister Amos Kimunya has promised that the ground-breaking for the Lamu Port project will be done by mid this year.

“When we are ready, we shall hit the ground and show the locals how they will get involved,” said Mr Kimunya. Lamu County Council chairman Addu Kassim Ahmed, is, however, at a loss, like most residents who say they have been kept in the dark concerning the project.

“I do not know what is happening in regard to the port’s construction. We get information about it from the media. We appeal to the government to involve the council in its plans to construct the port,” says Mr Ahmed.

The port will be a preferred destination as Lamu is closer to Dubai than Mombasa by over 500 nautical miles, and it is near Southern Sudan, Ethiopia as well as Eritrea.

Invitation for bids for the first phase of the port, for the first three berths, was advertised October 13, this year.

The tender specified that dredging is to be to a depth of up to 18.5 metres to allow for the docking of large ships that currently cannot call on ports on the East African coast.

Mr Ahmed, however, supports the project, saying it will create jobs for the residents and revenue for the council.

“Once the port is built, we will benefit. There are fears that outsiders will benefit more but we are telling the government to address that,” he said.

Connectivity to the proposed Lamu port will be by a superhighway and two railway lines: Lamu-Juba and Nairobi-Addis Ababa.

The two are flagship projects in the Vision 2030 blueprint to connect the proposed port to the hinterland.

These projects, it is hoped, will increase development opportunities in northern Kenya besides enhancing exploitation of natural and human resources as well as tapping the agricultural potential.

Regional integration

Similarly, the opening up of the area will help tap into the tourism and manufacturing industry.

This will contribute to regional integration of transport network at national, regional and global level as the longer term plan is to provide a link between the North-South and East-West transport corridors.

“This will facilitate cultural exchange besides the possible future connection of the Lamu-Juba Railway to Douala in Cameroon to form the Great Equatorial land bridge,” states the railway master plan that will eventually link the East and the West.

In the construction, the estimated cost for a single line would be Sh135 million ($1.8 million) per kilometre while the double line would cost Sh240 million ($3.2 million) per kilometre.

It is hoped that the Mombasa-Kisumu-Malaba double line with an extension to Kampala, Kigali, Bujumbura, Kisangani covering a total of 1,400 kms will be completed by 2016 at an estimated cost of Sh337.5 billion ($4.5 billion).

Also projected to be completed during the same year is the Rongai-Lokichogio-Juba single line covering 1,000 kms at a cost of Sh135 billion ($1.8 billion).

The Lamu-Lokichogio-Juba single line covering 1,600km at a cost of Sh225 billion ($3 billion) is projected to be completed by 2020. Later there will be the Lamu-Douala double line connection covering 4,500km to cost an estimated Sh1.08 trillion ($14.4 billion). This is a long-term project, probably to be completed by the year 2030.

The Nairobi-Moyale-Addis Ababa-Djibouti single line covering 700 km is projected to cost Sh97.5 billion ($1.3 billion) and is expected to be completed in 2020.

With Sudan holding a referendum in eight days, it is highly expected that the South will vote for secession from the North.

If this were to happen, there can never be a better opportune time to tap into the business there through the Lamu Port, which once completed, should have a capacity twice that of Mombasa.

There is also the Athi River-Namanga road, whose construction Kenya and Tanzania agreed to simultaneously launch. It is being widened to seven metres with two metre shoulders. It is scheduled to be completed this year.

Biggest road project

Another huge project is the construction of the heavily trafficked road with 250,000 vehicles a day — the Nairobi-Thika road — at a cost of Sh25 billion.

The road’s plan shows that it would become an eight-lane highway with service lanes on both sides. This, literally, makes it 12-laned and is expected to reduce to the standard dual carriage as it proceeds to Thika Town.

This is the biggest project in Kenya’s road network of about 177,800 km. It will be officially open for use this year.

Meanwhile, construction is ongoing and it has several interchanges that will ease congestion.

For instance, construction is ongoing on the Eastern and Southern bypasses at an estimated Sh8.5 billion ($112 million).

The Kenyan Government is financing 15 per cent of the project (Sh1.2 billion) while the Chinese Government is financing 85 per cent (Sh7.3 billion).