Murkomen: Increase Road Maintenance Levy by Ksh5

 

Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary (CS) Kipchumba Murkomen now says that the Road Maintenance Levy should be increased.

Speaking during an interview with Spice FM on Thursday, December 14, 2023, the CS suggested that the tax collected at the fuel pump and currently priced at Ksh18 per litre should be increased by Ksh5.

The CS defended the move claiming that it would help with the inflation in the cost of road construction materials.

While stressing that the move was necessary, CS Murkomen went on to state that it was unfortunate that over 5,000 roads were constructed but no plan was put in place to maintain them.

At the same time, the CS disregarded the National Dialogue Committee's (NADCO) recommendation to reduce the cost of the levy by Ksh5 saying that the move was not feasible.

"You have 5,000 kilometres of road that have been constructed but not been maintained, these are orphaned roads, if you travel across the country you will find that particularly roads that were delivered using low volume CIL are full of potholes because there is no maintenance plan.

"I have told members of parliament and requested the speaker that early next year we must have an honest conversation on how the resources are going to be raised, are we going to continue with the Road Maintenance Levy of Ksh18 per litre despite the fact that the costs of construction have gone high, is it going to be feasible?"the CS posed.

Adding: "We will not commence on any new project unless that project is from a development partner such as the World Bank, or African Development Bank. I've told President William Ruto and my colleagues at the Cabinet, in fact, I am likely to be an unpopular CS if the people don't appreciate that the resources are not there for us to build the roads."

The vocal CS also set the record straight on the frequent blackouts witnessed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) over the past three months.

In his address, the CS noted that the problems at the airport were systematic and had been long overdue. He also noted that there was no one to be sacked for the predicaments at the country's main airport insisting that the problems witnessed at JKIA were results of poor investments over the years.

"There was no one to sack….as a result of what happened at the airport, my friends suggested to me that I need to get my mattress and in the evening I go sleep next to the generator and the next morning I leave. I saw somebody saying a generator is something you just pluck in and pluck out but the problems we see at the airport are systemic of poor investments that we didn't put in place for many years. Our airports suffered immense neglect.

"When we came to office in 2013 under the Jubilee administration, there was a fire that burned part of the airport so a lot of concentration went to restoring the airport and a great job was done by Uhuru's administration to bringing back an airport within a very short time," the CS added.

ByAchieng' Mary