Kenya’s infrastructural development is transforming at a high rate despite the global recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat has said.
Kenya Vision 2030 director general Kenneth Mwige said there are mega roads and other infrastructural projects in every corner of the country.
In Nairobi, the expressway, which will be ready by February and is meant to ease traffic flow, has already changed the city’s landscape.
At the Coast, Mwige said numerous projects including the Sh4.5 billion Makupa bridge, Sh16 billion three-decker Changamwe inter-change and dual road network to Kwa Jomvu and Sh19 billion dual road from Kwa Jomvu to Mariakani are changing the face of Mombasa.
Other projects are the Lamu-Port-South-Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset), the Dongo Kundu bypass and numerous projects in Kilifi, Kwale, Lamu and Taita Taveta.
“You are all aware that we are in a global recession and in the middle of a pandemic which is Covid-19. We have suffered economic shocks as a country due to the economic downturn because of Covid-19, but we are hopeful that soon we will sail through,” Mwige said.
Despite the challenges, he said, the country has not stopped its mega projects, which are part of the Vision 2030 agenda.
“We are doing well, as far as Vision 2030 is concerned, we are on course, we are doing the best we can in this circumstance,” he said.
He was speaking in Mombasa on Sunday during the unveiling of three golf amateur players, who will play for the Kenyan national team during the Kenya Magical Open Golf series next March.
The Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat has set aside some funds to sponsor the three young men in next year’s championship.
“The reason we are supporting amateurs is to institutionalise support for our sportsmen and women across all sports. We do not just wait until Kipchoge has run a marathon in two hours and then we run there to support him. We need to develop a culture of supporting our sportsmen even before they win,” he said.
Since 2013, the President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration has invested in excess of Sh3.6 trillion infrastructural projects at the Coast.
The projects earmarked for completion before Uhuru’s exit from State House in August next year are the Sh40 billion new Kipevu Oil Terminal at the port of Mombasa and phase II of the second container terminal at the Port of Mombasa, which has an additional capacity of 450,000 containers.
So far, the President has launched Phase I of the Dondo Kundu bypass which cost Sh11 billion and the Sh1.9 billion Likoni floating bridge.
On May 20, he commissioned the first berth of the Sh40 billion Lamu Port.
Other mega projects for Mombasa are the Dongo Kundu Special Economic Zone, dualing of the Mombasa-Malindi highway and the Sh85 billion permanent bridge across the Likoni crossing channel.
Apart from the hardware infrastructure, Mwige said, the Kenya government has also invested heavily in education.
The Competency-Based Curriculum, Mwige said, is meant to prepare the Kenyan youth for the future, which needs thinkers.
“We want our children to stop learning parts of a grasshopper and to start learning how to code because that is the future. The future is not about, head, thorax, and abdomen anymore, it is about coding. That is why CBS has come in,” he said.
-Edited by SKanyara
