The government has indicated no plans to halt the planned road tolling after public participation, instead promising to keep toll fees affordable.
According to the Ministry of Roads and Transport, the government will ensure the amount Kenyans pay to use the roads remains affordable and is reinvested in road development.
The assurances follow complaints and concerns from Kenyans over the plan to roll out tolling on major highways. In the Draft Tolling Policy released last month, the government proposes tolling various categories of roads, including newly constructed roads, improved roads, and those deemed of higher quality than untolled alternatives.
Notably, it states that toll roads will not be required to have dedicated toll-free alternative routes, meaning all users of these highways would be subject to the toll fees.
Last August, the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) proposed highways for tolling, including Thika Superhighway, Nairobi Southern Bypass, Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit Highway, Kenol-Sagana-Marua Road, Mombasa Southern Bypass, and Dongo Kundu Bypass.
These roads are vital for easing congestion, enhancing trade, and improving connectivity across major regions. As a result, Kenyans raised concerns that tolls would increase transportation costs, exacerbate regional disparities, and affect transparency in toll revenue management.
In response, the government has committed to keeping toll rates affordable, ensuring toll revenues are reinvested into road development, and launching pilot projects before full implementation.
Whether this will be enough to convince Members of Parliament is a matter of wait and see.
However, the government looks keen to implement the project to offset debts accumulated from infrastructure construction and maintenance.
On Wednesday, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi revealed that the government took a Ksh60 billion loan from banks to settle pending bills from infrastructure.
He also confirmed that the government owes over Ksh175 billion to contractors and plans to float an infrastructure bond to offset this debt.
Already, the government has increased the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) from Ksh18 to Ksh25 per litre of petrol and diesel, aiming to collect at least Ksh115 billion annually. This is all part of efforts to find funds for road development.
With this in mind, the government is seeking regular revenue collections to fund road construction and further accelerate the sector, which has contracted for two consecutive quarters, according to analysis from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
