Road contractors in Narok County have been asked to make realistic work plans that will see their work completed within the stipulated time.
Narok County Commissioner Isaac Masinde said contractors who fail to stick to the guidelines they signed when accepting the contract risk facing legal action.
“We want to see the progress you have made, according to your work plan every time we visit, failure to which we will arrest rogue contractors and prosecute them in court for squandering the public money,” warned Masinde.
The county commissioner spoke when he led the County Development, Implementation Coordination Committee (CDICC) in inspecting the Narok–Sekenani road that is under maintenance and Kim’s Breeze-Polunga Road which is under construction.
Also present during the inspection tour was the Rift Valley Presidential Delivery Unit (PDU) Senior Director Richard Tutah, Narok County Police Commander John Kizito and engineers drawn from Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA), Kenya Rural Road Authority (KeRRA) and Kenya Urban Road Authority (KURA).
“These projects started by President Uhuru Kenyatta should be complete before his term ends in August. We do not want to continue pushing projects because of lazy contractors,” reiterated Masinde.
On his part, Tutah asked the contractors to take their job seriously to avoid being on the wrong side of the law.
He took issue with the contractor repairing the Narok- Sekenani highway, which despite having been funded has several potholes.
“A road under maintenance should not have a pothole. In case it occurs it should be fixed within 48 hours. This team will be touring this road after two weeks to make sure there is no single pothole on this road,” he said.
The 84 Kilometer road that leads to the Maasai Mara Game Reserve was improved to bitumen standards between 2017 and 2020 at a cost of Sh2.2 billion and is currently under maintenance.
The road, under the supervision of KeNHA has two contractors doing the maintenance as an average contractor is allocated 40-kilometer stretch to work on.
The team also inspected the Ewaso Nyiro Leather Factory and a mega bridge being constructed near the Narok GK prison.
By Ann Salaton
