How Kenyans are growing with Nairobi Expressway

By its design, the Nairobi Expressway is not just your ordinary road.

The elevated thoroughfare shortens travel time from JKIA to the CBD to 20 minutes from up to two hours.

For stakeholders, it is also not just a commercial project but also a testament of the mutual benefits of the good ties between Kenya and China.

Two years into its operations, official data reveals that traffic on the super highway has grown from 11,000 daily at the start to an average of 59,000.

The growth, interviews with staff and managers reveal, is not just about the number of vehicles taking the route but also in local capacity.

“This is a commercial project but is also a mutual benefit for us. We offer technology transfer to improve the skills of our staff and also offer job opportunities,” Moja Expressway corporate affairs general manager Gene Zhang said.

“But for us, of course, it's also quite a successful project so far. So we say it's a win-win situation. It's a win-win result. It will benefit both of us.

“The beauty of PPP Project is implementing a large-scale infrastructure project is that it does not impose any financial burden on the government as the investor bears the financial risk.”

More Kenyans, details show, have leapfrogged to the front line and are calling the shots on most of the operational issues after rigorous training by Chinese expatriates.

Byegon Aron leads a team of four who monitor the road 24 hours a day.

His journey in the expressway started in 2022, when he and 499 other locals passed an interview to undertake training on toll road operations.

A team of Chinese expatriates and 20 Kenyans who had joined the company in 2021 trained them for a month, after which he was hired as a shift supervisor at one of the toll stations along the expressway.

He would perform the role for about six months, after which he was promoted to be a toll station supervisor, or rather ticket manager, for another six months.

Having gained skills on toll station operations, he was moved to the monitoring centre, where he now oversees the process of toll management.

“We closely monitor the whole stretch of the Nairobi Expressway. We pay keen attention to whatever happens at the toll stations and also along the highway,” he told this writer.

NEW TERRITORY

Also in this lot was Tracy Rebecca. She started as a toll collector and is now a deputy station manager. She has also been a ticket supervisor.

For a human resources graduate, this was entirely a new territory, but the past two years have seen a lot of development in terms of her career set.

“I have learned how to operate toll operations, ensuring that there's constant traffic flow, ensuring that all employees observe safety,” she said.

“Training in the expressway operations is nearly an everyday thing. Safety is mandatory here. We have done much training on safety.”

She has also been trained on fire responses and first aid, and hence can handle any emergencies, from fires, crashes and also mechanical issues.

“As a deputy station master, I am given a more holistic responsibility,” Tracy said.

“It involves me ensuring that everybody understands their responsibility. I work with the ticket supervisor very closely, the shifters, ensuring that everything is done smoothly.”

Mike Omukuba joined Moja Expressway as a monitor and has now grown the ranks to assistant manager, road administration.

Like his other colleague, he studied corporate communications in university. He had a short stint at an NGO before he joined Moja.

Mike worked in the monitoring centre for nine months before being transferred to the role of a toll attendant for a month in March last year.

In May, he shifted to the road assets and corridor management department as a road administration officer up to December 2023.

“After thorough interviews, I got an opportunity to be promoted as the head of road patrol,” he said.

For Mike, you can handle any role on the road’s operations as long as you are willing to learn, and the Chinese, he says are always ready to teach.

“We have people who have studied IT, logistics and all that. The skill sets are very diverse. One thing about the Chinese is that they are not biased. Provided you can work, then they give you the opportunity to serve,” he said.

SMOOTH TRAFFIC

Mike’s work is to ensure that there is smooth traffic flow on the expressway, and that any construction work meets the right safety standards.

“We inspect the expressway to ensure that the damaged facilities are fixed in time and to ensure that the existing facilities meet the standards of the company,” he said.

Gene Zhang said local staff account for 96 per cent of the workforce.

Currently, there are more than 500 local staffers, and about 22 Chinese trainers, from the initial 33.

“We have to do training by our own. We hope that the staff who work for us can gain the skills and be professionals. And maybe in future, they can work in other PPP projects and also toll roads,” Gene said.

For training staff, we have 22. They were 33 at the beginning because we needed more, especially the toll station master from China, to train our local staff,” he said.

Among the lessons are on how to operate as a toll attendant, maintenance officer or maybe even as a corridor officer.

“We, therefore, cut the number of training staff and increased the local staff. The local staff is accounting for almost 96 per cent of the staff.”

More Kenyans are also taking up senior management roles, including human resources, legal and marketing.

“Some of them have been working with us before. Some were with us for about five years in some other projects,” Gene said.

When they transferred to the expressway project, they took up senior roles in Moja Expressway company.

“The seniors are at the toll management department, road corridor and maintenance teams, and also the auditing and customer service teams,” Gene said.

“So at the beginning, there's no senior staff. But we promoted them from time to time. Now we have one toll station master.”

LOCAL CAPACITY

Apart from Tracy, there are about 13 other deputy toll station managers, and some other assistant managers. 

Since last year, the company started a lot of training programmes aimed at improving staff skills, and graduates were issued certificates.

A number of locals, Gene said, were promoted just recently after undertaking the training.

They included a toll station master, deputy toll station master and assistant managers. 

We are trying to establish a talent centre in Kenya (for East Africa) to train the staff and to see whether some international agencies can be introduced into the training concept.

He said the curve showed that many people were taking up the road, giving them hope they’d recoup the investment.

“Currently, the number is growing from the bottom to the peak. It's a continuous one and a healthy one. It seems that more and more people are adopting this new road.”

The operator said the percentage of electronic toll collection (ETC) is accounting for 78 per cent of the motorists.

Nairobi expressway, a 27km stretch from James Gichuru junction to Mlolongo, has 15 exits and 15 entries, and is the first toll road in Kenya – hence the name Moja Expressway [the operator].