Ruto abandons Uhuru's road construction technology

The Kenya Kwanza administration has abandoned the low-volume seal technology in the construction of roads in the country.

The technology was introduced by the Jubilee administration back in 2014 and was aimed at opening up rural roads and farmlands across the country for ease of accessibility.

It was also aimed at connecting rural market centres and social amenities to the national trunk road network.

Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen said his ministry has instead introduced new policies that will guide in the construction and management of new roads in the country such that the required standards are attained.

“We have a new policy; we shall no longer construct roads to that standard again. We want to have roads that can last long,” Murkomen said.

He regretted that most of the roads that were constructed under the low-volume seal have since been damaged.

“When we constructed these roads we anticipated it shall be for private vehicles and public transport use only but it has since been used by even commercial vehicles that carry heavy loads,” he said.

According to Murkomen, they will also be introducing axle load controls on the new roads so that those motorists who exceed the required load limits are fined.

Low-volume seal roads use bitumen-based seals to economically pave roads with a low volume of vehicular traffic volumes.

The usage of this approach is said to cut road construction costs by more than 60 per cent.

The cost of constructing one kilometre of tarmac road under the usual standard is over Sh25 million. 

Superhighways and international trunk toads classified as (A) are, however, higher than this because they are designed to withstand heavy traffic and loads.

The cost for other building other classes of roads which are B, C  and D also differ.

By 2021, a total of 10, 000 kilometres of roads had been built by Kenya Rural Roads Authority (Kerra) under an annuity programme through the technology.

The plan by the government through the Kerra was to spend Sh5.6 billion yearly in road construction using LVS technology until 2022.

This method has been used in South Africa, Botswana among other African countries.