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The government wants to avoid taking on new loans to build roads. The government is pushing ahead with a controversial plan to introduce toll roads in Kenya as it seeks to upgrade its transport network without taking on new loans. The tolling policy will initially see motorists paying toll charges on major highways in Nairobi and Mombasa as the government seeks funds to build and maintain roads. Some of the proposed toll roads in Kenya include the Nairobi-Mau Summit Road, Southern Bypass, Northern Bypass, Thika Road, Kiambu Road and Dongo Kundu Bypass in Mombasa. According to the Roads Principal Secretary Joseph Mbugua, the toll charges—whose introduction date is yet to be announced—will apply to new and old roads. “We can’t limit ourselves to only tolling newly constructed roads, as one would say Thika Road is not as old as Mombasa Road,” Mr Mbugua said in a recent interview. “[Existing] roads require maintenance which the financier cannot support. Today, we are spending a lot of money to maintain Thika Road. We need to create resources to address road maintenance and improve some of the auxiliary roads within the area.” Nairobi Expressway is currently the only toll road in Kenya. In recent years, the government has been scouting for private investors to build and operate at least five toll roads countrywide in a move aimed at expanding and maintaining highways. The highways will be built through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, where investors build, maintain, and operate a road for 15-20 years to recoup their investments before handing over the facility to the government at the end of the contract. The government is trying to avoid taking out loans to fund its road projects at a time when the country’s public debt hit a record Sh11 trillion in January last year. In 2020, a Bill was tabled in Parliament seeking to revive 15 toll stations that previously required motorists to pay to use roads such as Nairobi-Mombasa, Nairobi-Nakuru, Nairobi-Thika, Nakuru-Nyahururu, and Kisumu-Busia highways. While the amount of fees to be paid by motorists has yet to be determined, earlier proposals indicated that drivers would be charged depending on the type of their vehicles with saloon car motorists paying Sh1.20 per kilometre. Drivers of vans and pick-ups would pay Sh1.79 per kilometre, while medium trucks and buses would pay Sh2.39 per kilometre. Operators of large trucks would be charged Sh3.59 per kilometre. Although critics of the project acknowledge that the government must find new ways to fund infrastructure projects, they doubt the model will succeed locally. “Kenyans will avoid the tolls. Vehicles will end up on minor roads not built for heavy traffic, which will cause them to deteriorate quickly,” says Job Maina, a Nairobi resident. There are also concerns that toll is a double tax on top of the road maintenance levy, currently charged at Sh25 per litre for petrol and diesel, and it will hurt many motorists. Kenya introduced road tolls in the late 1980s, but tolling was scrapped less than a decade later in favour of the road maintenance levy following public outcry over widespread corruption at the toll stations. It remains to be seen whether the government will succeed this time round. However, early signs indicate the plan will face huge legal encounters, including demands that the government provide toll-free roads for those who may not want to pay toll charges. In 2016, KeNHA erected billboards on the Southern Bypass informing motorists of its intention to introduce toll charges on the road. This sparked a public outcry prompting the then Transport CS James Macharia to suspend the plan. “The said billboards are premature and unauthorised as the government is yet to adopt a policy on road tolling,” Mr Macharia said in response to the notice. |
