Government threatens to terminate contracts for stalled projects
The government will terminate the contracts of any contractor overseeing stalled road projects and hand them to competitors who can deliver results,
The government will terminate the contracts of any contractor overseeing stalled road projects and hand them to competitors who can deliver results, Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir has warned.
While addressing residents during the Agolomuok-Otati-Kogore tarmacking on Friday, Chirchir signalled a major shift in how the government handles delayed infrastructure projects across the country.
The directive comes as taxpayers grapple with over 500 stalled projects nationwide, representing more than Ksh2 trillion in wasted investment and broken promises.
For ordinary Kenyans, these numbers translate to impassable roads, incomplete hospitals, and abandoned schools that could have transformed communities but now stand as monuments to inefficiency.
The government’s frustration is palpable after years of excuses from contractors who left projects incomplete, forcing commuters to endure potholed roads and dangerous detours daily.
“We have pending bills spanning 10 to15 years, where contractors were not being paid, which forced them to put a halt to the job,” CS Chirchir explained.
He added that the government has now brought contractors back to work, eliminating any excuse for non-performance since payments are being processed regularly.
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The pending bills crisis peaked at Ksh525 billion by September 2025, with state corporations owing a staggering Ksh406 billion of this massive debt burden.
“As we speak today, we have brought contractors back to work, and there will be no excuse for any contractor not performing because we are paying them,” stated CS ChirChir.
This means every Kenyan taxpayer effectively owes approximately Ksh10,000 toward clearing these accumulated debts, money that could have funded healthcare, education, or social programmes instead.
The National Treasury allocated Ksh229 billion in the current budget to settle verified pending bills, prioritising the road sector, which accounts for Ksh763 billion.
By December 2024, the government had cleared Ksh123 billion in road sector arrears, successfully reviving approximately 875 stalled road projects that had been abandoned.
The stalled projects span the Kibaki, Kenyatta, and Ruto eras, including high-profile failures like the Arror and Kimwarer dams.
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