The Kiambu county government has rolled out an elaborate plan to rehabilitate roads that were destroyed by the heavy rains that pounded the region.
To implement the plan, the county administration led by Governor Kimani Wamatangi, has purchased and deployed graders, rollers and trucks in all the 60 wards within the county.
County assembly majority leader Godffrey Mucheke said the county administration has changed tact in construction and rehabilitation of access roads within the region to cut costs.
Mucheke who is also the Kalimoni MCA in Juja, said all roads are done as in-house projects without involving external contractors, noting that besides reducing the costs, the county government has managed to revamp many kilometres of roads.
He noted that the amount of money paid to a contractor to rehabilitate four kilometres of road is now used to revamp about 20km since all equipments used belong to the county government.
“We used to pay contractors Sh5 million to construct four kilometres of roads but currently the same amount is being used to rehabilitate like 20km. Our aim is to ensure that all access roads within the county are motorable to spur economic activities in our region,” Mucheke said.
Speaking while inspecting the ongoing rehabilitation of key roads within the ward including Maasai and Chai roads on Monday, the Majority Leader said after the rains have subsided in most parts of the region, roads that were left in a dilapidated state will be revamped.
He said rehabilitation of the roads is set to ease mobility and accelerate economic transformation of the agriculture-rich county, adding that farmers will be able to access markets for their produce with ease.
“The heavy rains have caused significant damages on our roads and disrupted many activities. We are however determined to rehabilitate as many kilometres of roads as possible. This is why we have added our machineries for the work. Again we have many quarries where we are getting chippings and murram to make the roads passable,” he said.
He said crucial road in various villages including Athi, Mukuyu, Mastore, Kwa Murage and Zone-T among others have been damaged by the torrential rains rendering them impassable.
This, he said, caused hue and cry from residents who had a hard time wading through the flooded roads, since their daily activities had been disrupted.
Residents hailed the move to revamp the roads saying this will revive the region's economy which was slowly getting on its knees due to a deteriorated road infrastructure.
“We are glad that the suffering we have been going through is now coming to an end. We anticipate that our businesses will boom and more investments will open up,” said resident Brian Muiruri.
They however called on the county government to ensure a proper drainage system is put up along the roads to avoid flooding when it rains and further damage to the road.
