Construction of the Nairobi Expressway project is set to be completed by end of next year. Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia disclosed the report during an inspection tour.
The Nairobi Expressway Project is a 27-kilometer road project beginning from Mlolongo through the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) and Nairobi’s CBD to Westland’s area along Waiyaki Way. The project involves a four-lane and six-lane dual carriageway within the existing median of Mombasa Road/Uhuru Highway/Waiyaki Way and 10 interchanges.
The project broke grounds in October last year with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) as the contractor. The latter is responsible for the design, financing, and construction of the road under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework. The company will also operate the road for about 27 years so as to recoup its investment through the collection of road tolls.
The contractor has installed over 69 pillars and earthworks along the stretch. A section of the road from Mlolongo all the way to NextGen Mall, a distance of 18.2 kilometres and which is ongoing, will be a flatbed road, while the section from Nextgen Mall through the City-Centre to St Marks church, covering 8.2 kilometres, will be elevated.
PPP model
The road project is the first major project in the East African country to be carried out through a PPP model. It was initially to be completed December 2022 but has now been moved to December 2021 bringing the much-needed relief to traffic congestion in the Nairobi municipality.
“We want to gift Kenyans this facility as soon as possible, so we discussed with them (contractor) to reduce the time. They first reduced to two and half years, but now we have agreed with them to try and finish the main structures by December 2021,” said the CS.
“Most cities are making a lot of infrastructural investment to attract new investors and we do not want to be left behind. We are seeing this project as an integral part of not just our transport system but overall infrastructural development and that is why we are doing it in conjunction with what is happening at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the railway system,” CS Macharia added.
The toll charges will be kept in a special fund to finance maintenance of the highways and repayment of other roads built by private contractors but fail to generate enough funds to pay investors due to low number of users.
