Infrastructure
Kenya’s First High-Speed Highway to Cost Sh1.5 Trillion
US contractor says the project’s PPP model is too expensive.
The Nairobi-Mombasa Expressway project has hit a roadblock after Bechtel Corp rejected Kenya’s proposal to have it build the highway and recover its money by charging toll fees.
The American contractor, who was hired to build the 473-km highway, has said the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model would cost Sh1.5 trillion – which is five times the budget.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), Bechtel now wants the government to directly fund construction of the high-speed highway instead of adopting the toll model.
“The contractor has indicated that the country will get better value for money if the road is constructed under an EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) model rather than a toll model,” the PBO said on Tuesday.
The Nairobi-Mombasa Expressway was initially expected to cost Sh300 billion.
The project was approved in July 2015 when US President Barack Obama signed an MoU with Kenya for the highway, after which America nominated Bechtel to take up the job.
The Mombasa-Nairobi Expressway was to run parallel to the Nairobi-Mombasa Road.
In August 2017, the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) said it had inked a deal with Bechtel for construction of the six-lane expressway paving the way for mobilisation of financing from export credit agencies in the United States of America.
“Bechtel has been selected to build the first high-speed expressway in Kenya. The new 473-kilometre route will vastly improve the connectivity, efficiency and the safety of the road between Nairobi and Mombasa,” Peter Mundinia, then KeNHA director general, said.
The expressway is designed for consistent speeds of 120 kilometres per hour, reducing the journey time between Nairobi and Mombasa from the current ten hours to four hours.
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Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said in a 2018 interview that the toll model, which will later see the road transferred to the State, was a cheaper option for taxpayers.
“We do not want to take more debt if the private sector can do the job. National Treasury through the PPP unit and their advisers have done the maths, and preference is for PPP option,” Mr Macharia said.
The government had planned to have the project completed in ten sections within six years.
The first section, from the junction with Namanga Road near Kitengela was to have an interchange near Konza and a spur road to Kyumvi (Machakos Turnoff) on Mombasa Road.
This section was anticipated to open to traffic in October 2019.
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