Why Ruto stopped Uhuru’s Sh180bn Mau Summit project
3 min read
Ruto's administration put on hold the construction of the Mau Summit highway over the high cost and tight fiscal space
Ruto’s administration put on hold the construction of the Mau Summit highway over the high cost and tight fiscal space.
The Mau Summit highway project was put on hold by the Kenya Kwanza administration because it was too expensive, and the State is now pressing for a review of the Sh179.9 billion ($1.3 billion) project.
According to the Ruto administration, the overall cost was too expensive given Kenya’s constrained fiscal situation at the time.
The government is currently in negotiations with the project’s contractors and financiers, which will postpone the project’s implementation and turn away financiers like the World Bank and the African Development Fund.
“We are still in negotiation. It became a bit hard for us to afford to go by the current dynamics, so we requested them to review their presentation to be able to see whether we can make them affordable,” said the Roads Transport Principal Secretary Joseph Mbugua.
Asked by what margin the government wanted the cost reduced, Mr. Mbugua did not give a figure.
“You see, affordability… If you are told to afford something it is about the total cost of the product vis-à-vis what we can support financially,” he explained.
Mr. Mbugua was, however, optimistic that the negotiation would be fruitful, with the government having presented its proposal to both the financiers and contractors of the project.
“And we are also working with them. So, we will come to a consensus,” he said on the sidelines of the fourth Engineers Partnerships Convention (EPC) in Nairobi.
Although the contractors are yet to break ground on the 233-kilometre road, the government has allocated Sh816 million for the acquisition of land along the planned highway in the four fiscal years to 2025/26.
Initiated by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta, the construction of the Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit toll road that was initially meant to kick off in September 2021 has been awaiting the approval of President William Ruto.
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A consortium of three French firms indicated they were ready to break ground having got the financial backing of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank.
However, sources close to the project say the new administration has been cagey about the tolling of the road, which they fear will roil the economy of President Ruto’s Rift Valley backyard.
Both the contractors and financiers have indicated they were waiting for President Ruto’s word on when construction should start.
President Ruto has since met his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron during a visit to France in January, and it is understood the impending construction of the road featured in the bilateral talks.
Mau Summit road, which would have been expanded into a four-lane dual carriageway through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, is the main artery from Nairobi to western Kenya and the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
One of the major sticky issues has been the absence of an alternative route for motorists who did not want to pay toll fees, as is the case with the Nairobi Expressway.
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