County With Only One Tarmac Road

Since independence, Mandera County has had only one tarmac road that was commissioned in 2014 by Governor Ali Roba.

During an interview with Citizen TV on Monday, the governor stated that the fruits of the road have already started showing, as the town is now more economically active.

The residents were excited during its construction with some confessing they had never seen a roundabout anywhere apart from school books. 

The 24km road that goes through Mandera town has cost the County government Ksh1.4 billion. 

The county boss explained that the road has taken so long to complete due to security concerns. 

Road CEC Zulekha Hulbale told journalists that frequent insecurity cases had often led to the suspension of construction activities by contractors. 

He narrated that soon after the contractors had assembled equipment and mobilised workers, Al-Shabaab terrorists almost took over the town. 

One of the major incidences of insecurity that have occurred in Mandera is an improvised explosive device (IED) that killed 4 people in June 2017 after the vehicle they were travelling it ran over the device. 

In November the same year, an explosive went off after it was hurled at a Catholic church in the county from a moving Toyota Probox.

In January 2018, four children were killed when an explosive device they were playing with exploded.

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