Nairobi will be connected within three years to a highway that will also handle the traffic of trucks coming from the Rift Valley and heading north of the coast.
The Lamu-Garissa motorway project, which will be connected to the one that goes from Garissa to the capital, was presented yesterday, Monday 19 April, at the signing ceremony of the company that won the tender. This company, needless to say, is Chinese: China Communication Construction Company.
The company has ensured the appropriate requirements for the bid of 17 billion shillings for a stretch of 196 kilometres following the standards of the recently built Chinese asphalt roads, such as the one connecting the town of Kitui to Kibwezi at the gateway to Tsavo.
The project is part of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) corridor project and also makes use of secondary roads associated with the highway. Other links are also planned, such as the one that will link Hindi, the last town on the mainland before arriving at the Mokowe docking station, which gives access to the Lamu archipelago, to the village of Kiunga, on the border with Somalia. This section, about 25 kilometres long, will cut through the Boni forest, allowing vital monitoring in an area that has long been garrisoned by militants and sympathisers of Somalia's Al Shabaab terrorist cells.
Kenya Highways Corporation (KENHA) Chairman Wangai Ndirangu, announced the latter project as already budgeted for in the current financial year.
"The two roads will have a safety effect on two fronts," Ndirangu said, "as well as improving safety within the Lamu-Boni area, it will also help open up the area for future investors once the new Lamu port is operated.
The aim, which already consists of the highway from Nairobi to the Ethiopian border at Moyale, is to create a single route that can transport goods from northern Kenya and Ethiopia and South Sudan to Lamu, without having to pass through Mariakani, Kilifi and Malindi.
The future of Kenya's major asphalt links also includes another major artery that will cut through the hinterland of Kilifi and Malindi, passing through Bamba and Malanga, to rejoin the existing road to Lamu at Garsen.
But for this to happen, a road bridge will have to be built across the Galana River at Langobaya.