PS for Roads Joseph Mbugua says payment of Sh150 billion pending bills has slowed down plans by the government to implement new infrastructure projects.
Mbugu says President William Ruto’s administration would however in two years complete all ongoing road projects inherited from the previous regime before embarking on new ones.
“We have to pay off the pending bills and then complete the stalled projects before we start new ones,”Mbugua said.
He said all the infrastructure projects were important in spurring economic growth and that the Kenya Kwanza government was committed to ensuring all parts of the country had good infrastructure to attract investments.
The PS was speaking at Eldoret National Polytechnic during a three-day capacity building workshop for the Institution of Engineering Technologists and Technicians of Kenya.
He warned that the government would not tolerate contractors who do shoddy road work leading to loss of public resources.
“As a ministry, we will penalise resident engineers whose role is to supervise road projects funded by the government in the event the work done by contractors is found to be shoddy,” he said.
Mbugua accused some of the contractors of colluding with cartels to frustrate implementation of projects while wasting public resources.
Also present at the event were Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii and Eldoret National Polytechnic Chief Principal Charles Koech.
The PS said the purge on corruption would not spare cartels in the roads sector.
“We will terminate contracts awarded to those working cartels to frustrate our development agenda. We cannot continue to waste public resources to a few individuals as Kenyans suffer because of bad roads.”
Governor Bii said lack of proper supervision on government funded projects had turned many of them into white elephant projects.
The county boss regretted that government resources had been spent on mega projects which have ended up stalling along the way because of poor supervision to ensure timelines and quality work is done by contractors. "If we expect faster growth then we need to work together in ensuring we stop wastage and that those given contracts must deliver within set time and also adhere to quality standards,” Bii said.
Koech said the forum aims at providing insight on the modern manufacturing and control technology for enhanced productivity and quality to the learners.
He said some of the topics to be covered include Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Systems in Manufacturing.
