Kenya Pushes Plan to Use Tolls to Fund New Highways

The Kenyan government is now turning to road tolls to raise money to finance highway projects as it races to upgrade its transport infrastructure without taking out new loans.

Private investors, who the State is scouting for, will build and operate at least five toll roads countrywide in a move aimed at expanding and maintaining highways.

Some of the roads earmarked for tolling include the Nairobi-Mau Summit Road, Nairobi Southern Bypass, Thika Road, Dongo Kundu Bypass, and the Kenol-Sagana-Marua Road.

The Nairobi Expressway is currently Kenya’s only toll road.

The highways will be built through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model, where investors build, maintain, and operate a road for 15-20 years to recoup their investments before handing over the facility to the government at the end of the contract.

The government is trying to avoid taking out loans to fund its road projects at a time when the country’s public debt hit a record Sh11 trillion in January.

On Tuesday, the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) disclosed that talks to introduce tolls on several highways countrywide were underway, assuring that public participation would occur before any decisions are made.

“The Kenya National Highways Authority appreciates the ongoing discussion around the development of a Road Tolling Policy,” KeNHA said on X.

“Once the policy is finalised, it will guide which roads will be tolled. KeNHA remains committed to transparency and inclusivity throughout this process and will continue to engage with the public at every stage.”

In 2020, a Bill was tabled in Parliament seeking to revive 15 toll stations that previously required motorists to pay to use roads such as Nairobi-Mombasa, Nairobi-Nakuru, Nairobi-Thika, Nakuru-Nyahururu, and Kisumu-Busia highways.

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While the amount of fees to be paid by motorists has yet to be determined, earlier proposals indicated that drivers would be charged depending on the type of their vehicles with saloon car motorists paying Sh1.20 per kilometre.

Drivers of vans and pick-ups would part with Sh1.79 per kilometre, while medium trucks and buses would pay Sh2.39 per kilometre.

Operators of large trucks would be charged Sh3.59 per kilometre.

Although critics of the project acknowledge that the government must find new ways to fund infrastructure projects, they doubt the model will succeed locally.

“Kenyans will avoid the tolls. Vehicles will end up on minor roads not built for heavy traffic, which will cause them to deteriorate quickly,” says Job Maina, a Nairobi resident.

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There are also concerns that toll is a double tax on top of the road maintenance levy, currently charged at Sh25 per litre for petrol and diesel, and it will hurt many motorists.

Kenya introduced road tolls in the late 1980s, but tolling was scrapped less than a decade later in favour of the road maintenance levy following public outcry over widespread corruption at the toll stations.

It remains to be seen whether the government will succeed this time around. However, early signs indicate the plan will face huge legal encounters, including demands that the government provide toll-free roads for those who may not want to pay toll charges.

In 2016, KeNHA erected billboards on the Southern Bypass informing motorists of its intention to introduce toll charges on the road. This sparked a public outcry prompting the then Transport CS James Macharia to suspend the plan.

“The said billboards are premature and unauthorised as the government is yet to adopt a policy on road tolling,” Mr Macharia said in response to the notice.

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