The Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia said that the 530 km road will help develop 10 towns that are along the corridor as well as ease transport of cargo from the Lamu Port/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 29 – The Kenya National Highways Authority has signed a contract of Sh62 billion between and South Africa based Company-Five Group Construction Proprietary Limited for the construction of the Lamu-Garissa-Isiolo Road which is a component of the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Project .
The Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia said that the 530 km road will help develop 10 towns that are along the corridor as well as ease transport of cargo from the Lamu Port.
“We are achieving a very key milestone to basically kick off the process of construction of the Lamu -Garissa- Isiolo Road and that it is no longer a pipe dream. Indeed now we are starting the implementation of the development of that corridor, we are opening that corridor of northern Kenya completely that means the growth of this country would be massively enhanced,” he said.
According to Macharia, the project once completed will improve access and inter-connectivity between Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda.
The project is expected to commence next June and will be opened for operation after four years.
The operations and maintenance phase will run for a period of 25 years where Lamu Road Consortium (LRC) will operate the road while maintaining high performance standards equivalent to a motorway to enhance throughput of transit vehicle and also reduce vehicle operating cost.
The road would start in the port city of Lamu and proceed in a northwesterly direction through the town of Bura, Tana River County, and continue on to the town of Garissa. At Garissa, the road would continue its northwesterly direction to Modo Gashe. Here it would take a southwesterly direction through Garba Tula, to end at Isiolo.
At Isiolo, the road will link with the Isiolo-Lokichar Road, which is also planned.
The project is being funded by the Development Bank of South Africa and the repayment is expected to take a period of 13 years.
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