Of kickbacks and spectre of stalled projects
Opinion
By
Mutahi Mureithi
| Jun 21, 2026
Each time I use Thika Road, I can’t help but think how a project that’s well executed can change people’s lives. When the road was being converted into a highway, there were naysayers saying the road was not only very expensive but was meant to serve a certain community.
And of course, the infamous quote that roads are not edible. The road now stands as a testament to the forward thinking and vision of President Mwai Kibaki and his technocrats.
However, the road has lately been marred by the spectre that haunts this country: that of unfinished projects.
We have huge boulders lined up hazardously on the side of the road and I am reminded of a project that was supposed to be implemented known as the Bus Rapid Transport.
Millions of shillings were spent on this fool’s errand. Remember a pink line that was painted on the outer lane that was supposed to be for the BRT? Apparently, even painting that line cost a couple of hundreds of millions yet, today, not even a smudge of it can be seen anywhere.
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There are bus stages that lie abandoned like the Pantheon ruins of the Roman empire all over the highway, and the main bus park near Kasarani stadium is overgrown with bushes.
I always ask myself: why do new governments sometimes feel that finishing a project started by their predecessors will work against them? Or do they want to be seen to ‘own’ the project for political mileage? Or more presciently, has it got something to do with the scourge ravaging our country – kickbacks?
Whatever the case, we should not be having projects abandoned mid-way just because there is a change of government.
When Uhuru Kenyatta took over the reins from Mwai Kibaki, he could have opted to discontinue Kibaki’s other flagship project – the Standard Gauge Railway – which by then had become heavily politicised due to escalating cost. He could have started a mega project in his own name but he opted to continue with the project despite opposition from many quarters.
Now, when the current government took over, the first project they cancelled was the Rironi–Mau Summit highway.
I don’t know the reasons behind this since the contract was awarded to some other firms (at a penalty of about Sh7 billion) but it set us back in terms of completing a road that is a key artery for this country and the region.
One can only surmise the reason for paying such a heavy price for cancelling the contract but, your guess is as good as mine – refer to the scourge mentioned above!
And it is a heavy price to pay. Even at a cost of building a bitumen road at, say, Sh100 million a kilometre, we are looking at having thrown to the dogs 70 kilometres of a good road.
But I guess somebody somewhere had to get his piece of pie from the new contract.
We have abandoned roads all over the country, simply because there are some people somewhere who feel that they ought to have been cut in on the deal. I recently saw first-hand what has happened to the so-called Mau Mau roads.
What has remained are very sturdy bridges all over the place but no roads leading to them. I only wish that such good and structurally sound bridges will one day be remembered, politics aside, so that they can be of help to the intended beneficiaries.
I was just musing: what if, sometimes late next year, when a new government takes over, the powers that be decided to abandon affordable housing that is the legacy project of the current government? Can you visualise the litter that would don the entire countryside? We would have ‘ghettoised” entire neighbourhoods at a very high cost.
Allow me to digress – what is the role of that Zimbabwean fat man who is always posting pictures of himself with the powers that be? He is either pictured in State House or flying private jets all over.
If I was one of the President’s handlers, I would advise him to choose a less voracious man for an accomplice.
—The writer is a communications consultant