Sakaja speaks on the state of roads in Nairobi

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has absolved himself from blame over the current dilapidated state of major roads in the county.

Speaking on Citizen TV’s JKLive Show on Wednesday, Sakaja passed the buck to the disparity in leadership between the national and county governments.

He underscored that most roads in the country’s capital were either under the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) or the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) hence his administration had no financial capacity to maintain them, amidst concerns about increased potholes.

The governor cited major roads which have largely attracted criticism such as Jogoo Road, Uhuru Highway, Arwings Kodhek and Gitanga Road saying that they were the obligation of the national roads authorities.

“There is a division of functions between national government and county governments revenues and roads are classified; when you go online, you will see national, county roads and international roads such as Uhuru Highway and Jogoo Road, which is an international trank road classified as A and so the work is under national government,” he explained.

“I don’t have resources for Jogoo Road, Arwings Kodhek…many of these roads; those are national roads.”

The first-term governor who has been on the receiving end for the poor conditions of infrastructure in the county dragged the Members of Parliament into the mess, asserting that the Parliamentarians benefit from the Road Maintenance Levy paid by taxpayers, and thus should be using it to repair the roads within their jurisdiction.

He pointed out that through the Council of Governors, the governors were pushing to revert the levy to the counties since MPs could not repair major roads and highways which fall outside their Constituencies or traverse more than one sub-county.

“Gitanga Road is under KURA and I don’t blame them. The Council of Governors is in court because the Road Maintenance Levy Fund collects a levy on every single user of petroleum products and is supposed to be for road maintenance,” stated Sakaja.

“That money is not given to counties so I don’t have the monies for road maintenance, the money is given to the national government through the MPs. When you give an MP money for those roads through CDF, no one is going to do Jogoo Road because many constituencies touch it. I don’t blame them.”

He added, “Because of that we are making a case as CoG so that roads that connect sub-counties, the money goes to counties to maintain those roads.”

Despite admitting that some of the roads under his administration were still in poor condition, the county boss committed to ensuring that repairs were completed within the promised time frame.

He said that the government had already disbursed Ksh.5 billion to repair roads in the CBD, Jogoo Road and Soweto roads in Kayole area.

“As a leader, I don’t want to shift blame to the national government but I want to draw the context that there is a separation for the capital and that Soweto road around Jacaranda (KURA) there is a separation... The Urban Areas and Cities Act provides that for infrastructure in the capital there must be cooperation between the national and county governments. We agreed on what should be done and have gotten about Ksh.5 billion to sort out the CBD roads and they also issued a tender for Jogoo Road under KURA, Soweto,” he noted.

“I have received complaints on Chania Avenue, Kindaruma and Wood Avenue, those ones I take responsivity because tarmac had been done on black cotton soil and instead of doing patches, we agreed to do full reconstruction.”