Kenya’s $1.31bn Mau Summit-Malaba Toll Road Clears First Hurdle

(NAIROBI, KENYA) – Kenya’s planned 243-kilometre Mau Summit-Malaba dual carriageway has cleared an initial viability test, with consultants finding that the proposed toll road can be built within the existing corridor.

The outcome paves the way for a more detailed feasibility study that will set the project’s final cost, traffic projections, tolling potential and structure under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

CPCS of Canada and Kenya’s Avatech Engineering conducted the pre-study that will guide the cost of the project and the toll fees to be charged by investors who fund it.

Paul Kambalame, principal consultant at CPCS in charge of the Kenyan market, said the pre-feasibility assessment examined the technical, environmental and social suitability of upgrading the existing road into a four-lane, access-controlled toll highway.

“Our findings were that it is a suitable project. It is an important national infrastructure project for the country, and it should move forward,” Mr Kambalame told Business Daily.

“It is technically viable because it falls within Kenya’s existing road right of way. Environmentally and socially, the impact is also expected to be very minimal,” he said.

Mr Kambalame added that the existing road corridor suited the infrastructure project.

“There would not, for example, be a need for significant resettlement or for the road to pass through environmentally sensitive areas,” he said.

The project involves upgrading the 243-kilometre Mau Summit-Malaba highway into an access-controlled tolled road and expanding its capacity from two lanes to four lanes. The route forms part of the Northern Corridor connecting western Kenya and Uganda and will complement the upstream Nairobi-Mau Summit highway already under construction.

The project will join the KES 170 billion ($1.31 billion / £1.01 billion) Rironi-Mau Summit dual highway, marking a shift from an earlier plan to extend the carriageway on the Kisumu-Busia-Malaba side.

China Road and Bridge Corporation and the National Social Security Fund have already started work on the 236-kilometre section from Rironi through Nakuru to Mau Summit.

The Mau Summit-Eldoret-Malaba section, part of the Northern Corridor, currently carries heavy traffic and is prone to accidents.

The government had earlier said the dual carriageway would be extended to Malaba through Kisumu and Busia. It had remained silent on the Mau Summit-Eldoret-Malaba section.

The Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) had earlier disclosed that 24% of the Northern Corridor roads were in poor condition by 2018, forcing transporters to endure over 100 hours moving from Mombasa to Malaba, against a targeted 78 hours.

Besides the existing 27-kilometre Nairobi Expressway, KeNHA plans to build more expressways on key transport corridors to ease rising traffic congestion and spur local and foreign investment.

Expressways are typically high-capacity roads designed to allow vehicles to travel quickly and efficiently over long distances with minimal interruptions. They are built to handle large volumes of traffic at relatively high speeds compared with ordinary roads and often involve tolls.