Parliament has shortened contracts of the director generals of key road agencies in what is engineered to promote good governance and ensure performance in the state corporations.
- •Amendments to the Kenya Roads Act have cut short the duration in office from five years to three for the director-general of Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KURRA), the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), and the Kenya National Highway Authority (KENHA).
- •The bill, signed into law last week by President William Ruto, provides for a transition provision that stipulates that a person who held office before the law shall serve for the unexpired term period, and be eligible for a further one per.
- •The changes comes as pressure piles for the disbandment of the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) and the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA), as the battle over the control of the multibillion-shilling Roads Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) rages.
“The principal object of the Bill, now Act, is to amend section 13(3) of the Kenya Roads Act, Cap. 408, to align the term of offices of Director-Generals of various roads authorities with the Mwongozo Code of Governance for State Corporations,” notes Leader of Majority Party Kimani Ichung;wa.
“To this end, the Act has amended section 13(3) of the Kenya Roads Act to provide that a Director-General of each Authority, these being the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KERRA); the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA); and the Kenya National Highway Authority (KENHA) shall serve for a period of three years, renewable once.”
Why Leaders Want to Disband Road Agencies
Leaders argue that under current law, all roads in Kenya are classified as either national or county roads, falling under the jurisdiction of the national or county governments.
"I am the one who introduced KURA, KERRA and KENHA but that was under a unified system of government. With a devolved system of government, you don’t need KERRA, you don't need KURA. All of them should be surrendered to the county government,'' ODM Party leader Raila Odinga said.
KERRA is a state corporation within the State Department of Roads with mandates including management, development and rehabilitation of rural road network in the country.
Following a road reclassification exercise conducted in January 2016 by the Transition Authority, KURA’s mandate was realigned to reflect the new constitutional framework. This significantly expanded the Authority’s responsibilities to include the management of all national trunk roads as they traverse urban areas.
KURA currently oversees a road network spanning approximately 4,625 km, comprising both paved and unpaved roads within urban areas.