Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

The future of the Road Annuity Programme (RAP) is again facing uncertainty after the government proposed a fresh mechanism to address the infrastructure funding crisis that has led to a surge in pending bills.

Uncertainty surrounding the plan has always been linked to inflation of construction cost by the project operators, something that is straining the government coffers.  Transport and Public Works Cabinet Secretary nomimee Kipchumba Murkomen revealed that construction of road projects stalled over unpaid Sh140 billion pending bills inherited from the previous Jubilee regime.

“The programme [annuity], which was meant to be a financing alternative to date, has not lived up to its billing. The annuity programme was the most unfortunate programme we ever implemented,” he told National Assembly during vetting.

He further divulged that the RAP debut project, Ngong-Kiserian-Isinya and Kajiado-Imaroro roads project costs Sh28 billion, much higher than the initial estimate of Sh10 billion.

Interested investors

The 90.55 kilometre road was being operated by GVR- HASS consortium, who also constructed the 143 kilometre Modogashe – Habaswein – Samatar Road and Rhamu – Mandera Road. Under RAP, the government evokes a public private partnership (PPP) with interested investors who meet about 70 percent of the construction cost. 

The Treasury had approved the identification of a maximum of 10,000-kilometre priority roads distributed across the country for construction and maintenance under the public private partnership.

However, only Ngong-Kiserian-Isinya and Kajiado-Imaroro roads were constructed through the annuity fund.