The county government of Laikipia has announced to have received the second batch of leased road construction equipment.
Governor Ndiritu Muriithi made the announcement and said that the batch was acquired under the leasing program at a cost of Sh400 million and aims at improving infrastructure in the county by upgrading more than 7,000 kilometres of road in the area.
The equipment received consist of a grader, excavator, compactor, tipper lorry and water bowser. The leasing programme would help end a perennial problem in government, where vehicles and such equipment lay grounded for years for lack of funds to maintain or repair them.
โLeasing is the way to go if we have to build more roads for if we had to buy this equipment in cash, we would have to part with hundreds of millions which our budget cannot sustain, so we settled for leasing which is much cheaper,โ Muriithi said.
Embracing leasing of equipment
The Governor added that since his administration embraced leasing of equipment in 2019, a total of 848.8 kilometres of road network had been graded and 388.59 kilometres graveled as of 15th May 2021.
โWhen you lease maintenance is a major component of the agreement between us and the leasing company since they take care of all maintenance costs making the equipment available for use all the time. Since we received our first batch on 9th October 2019, two graders, one excavator, 5 tippers and a subsequent delivery of two water bowsers as well as two rollers, we have witnessed an accelerated progress in road construction within our vast County,โ said the governor.
โIf we were doing it with contractors, we would have required to part with about Sh100 million for just fewer roads, but with leased equipment, we are able to do more roads at a cheaper rate,โ Muriithi added.
Absa Bank has financed the leasing proramme for the County and according to its Director of Leasing, Dan Odongo the financial institution had so far injected Sh600 million into the deal in both tranches.
