Kirinyaga Governor Ann Waiguru shows President Uhuru Kenyatta (right) the plan for Thiba Dam. PHOTO | NMG
"In the past three years, we have embarked on building an
entirely new world-class railway system, and thousands of kilometres of
access roads to connect producers to markets,” said President Kenyatta
at his inauguration on Monday.
He committed to invest heavily on affordable housing, re-engineering the agriculture sector.
But
he did not make any pledges touching on the mega infrastructure
projects in key sectors such energy and transport which characterised
his first term. The President only promised to “fulfil the Jubilee
development agenda.”
From the heavily
infrastructure-hinged 2013 manifesto, the Kenyatta administration’s
record has been a story of hits and misses, but the the commissioning of
the $327 billion, 480km Nairobi-Mombasa standard gauge railway (SGR) in
May this year remains the regime’s biggest achievement.
The
120km Nairobi-Naivasha phase of the project is under way while
discussions on the financing for the phase 2B to Nakuru 2C to Kisumu are
ongoing.
But critics argue that the cost of the
project has been largely inflated citing similar projects undertaken by
neighbours, including Ethiopia.
Only 7,000 kilometres of road were constructed between 2013 and 2017, against Mr Kenyatta’s promise of 13,000 kilometres.
The
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport expansion project is yet to take
off due to numerous delays blamed on lack of funding, while the planned
construction of the greenfield terminal, which the President launched in
2013, was shelved last year.
The Lamu Port South
Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) project launched in March 2012, is on
course despite concerns that of partners Uganda and Ethiopia may have
pulled out.
According to the Lapsset
Corridor Development Authority, construction of the first three berths
of the Lamu port is ongoing, while preliminary facilities at both the
Manda and Isiolo airports have been completed.
On
Wednesday, Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said the
construction of the 530km Lamu-Garissa-Isiolo Highway — the first road
section of the project — is set to start mid next year after the
government signed a $620 million financing deal with South African firm,
Group Five Construction Proprietary. The section is being financed by
the African Development Bank.
The Lamu-Isiolo stretch
is part of the part of the 2,000km Lapsset corridor which the Mr
Macharia said would take about four years.
The $70
million, 1.7 million-acre Galana-Kulalu food security project, which was
touted to solve Kenya’s food shortage, has failed to deliver, with only
1 per cent of the project in operation, nearly five years since the
government began pumping in money.
A week before he
was sworn in, President Kenyatta was at the groundbreaking of the $200
million Thiba Dam in Kirinyaga County in central Kenya, which is
expected to double the country’s rice output.
In ICT,
the government distributed 1 million tablets to learners in public
schools as part of the Digital Learning Programme after abandoning the
initial laptops project.
The government is yet to open
doors to investors for the construction at the $12 billion Konza Techno
City project nearly five years since the project was launched by
President Mwai Kibaki.
Moi Sports Centre Kasarani in
Nairobi will remain Kenya’s only stadium that meets international
standards, after the government failed to deliver on its promise to
construct five new modern stadia in major cities and towns by 2017.
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