Roads and Transport CS Kipchumba Murkomen has said the government needs to take drastic action to complete pending road projects across the country.
The CS said it was high time the true state of the country’s road situation was revealed in the spirit of the ongoing national conversation to resolve the challenge.
He said Kenya Kwanza inherited a pending bill of Sh150 billion for road contracts across the country, a figure that has since risen to Sh165 billion.
“For the last two years, this government has been accused of not communicating and it is because we have tried to behave like an African father who does not want to tell his children the exact state of his pocket in the hope that in the fullness of time, he will get something for the kids,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, the impatience of your children can easily eat you because you have been trying to hide the truth of what it is.”
In a statement, the CS added that he has decided to lay it bare so that the people of Kenya know the state of the infrastructure, the status of accounts and the budget.
Murkomen added that Kenyans should be ready to make sacrifices in other sectors to complete the roads.
He said the situation the country has found itself in was a systemic and historic problem because “we have increased the number of roads and approved budgets without a clear plan of how these roads will be completed before starting new ones.”
“That is why when we came to office, we decided that we were not going to start new road projects until we complete what had been started,” said Murkomen.