The Nairobi government can now repair some of the dilapidated roads in the city after it received Sh375 million from the Kenya Roads Board to do the work.
The money is part of the Sh7 billion Roads Maintenance Levy Fund the board has disbursed to all the devolved units in the current financial year for maintenance of roads.
Nairobi received the lion’s share of the fund — five per cent. Turkana received Sh302.54 million (four per cent of the fund) and Mandera Sh258.56 million, equivalent to 3.45 per cent.
The funds were allocated based on the Commission on Revenue Allocation formula, which takes into account population, poverty, fuel consumption, geographical size and location of the counties.
Skewed road allocation formula?
Last year, the Council of Governors criticised the formula and demanded 37 per cent of the fund, saying they handle 120,000km of roads.
Currently, the counties receive 15 per cent of the total fund while 85 per cent goes to the national government.
“The Fuel Levy Fund was set up to repair roads, mainly national highways and county roads. The costing should be done for all roads and the fund shared between the two levels of government,” CoG chairman Peter Munya had said.
Governor Evans Kidero said the formula is skewed and demanded that the bulk of the money be allocated to Nairobi county.
He said two billion litres of fuel is consumed in Kenya every year and of this 1.3 billion litres is consumed in the city, accounting for 65 per cent of the total consumption.
“This is why we are asking the national government to consider transferring Sh11.7 billion of Fuel Levy cash to the county government,” he said.
On Friday last week, Kenya Roads Board finance manager Rashid Mohammed admitted that counties with large road networks are losing out on the funds because of the skewed allocation formula.
Most roads in Nairobi are in a pathetic state and many projects have stalled. The county government has blamed the problem on insufficient funds.
Last week, the Star reported residents’ concern over the state of the roads. Most roads in the CBD and estates are impassable because they have large and deep potholes.
The potholes are flooded with water and businesspeople dump garbage in them, while street children turn them into toilets.
The roads have either been destroyed by heavy rains, illegal dumping or have been neglected by the government.