Roads to come under Works in dept reshuffle

THE National Roads Authority will now come under the Works Department, and all road maintenance will be the responsibility of provincial governments and district development authorities, says Minister Michael Nali.
Nali, the Works and Implementation Minister, said the move was in line with the changes the department wanted to implement.
“By 2019, we should repeal the NRA Act. So this implementation will take us all the way to 2023,” he said.
“We are now bringing everything back under one roof and cutting away all the wastages where we have different organisations doing the same job. The cost that comes with it is enormous.”
He said the NRA by legislation should operate independently and report directly to the board and minister.
“So the (Works) Secretary would not have any control over that organisation.”
Nali said the NRA have been operating on a 4 toea excise on fuel and the maximum raised annually was between K14 million and K16 million.
“The NRA was created to raise funds to maintain our roads. They try to upkeep all our national highways but also fell short, so threw all the things to the department of works. Then it also went off to become an implementer that created a lot of problems.”
He said the National Executive Council had given him the approval to bring all the functions of the NRA and its staff under the department.
He said the provinces and districts would have to maintain their roads.
“We will start implementing everything at the same time. It is a long process. We are encouraging the governments to rebuild the Plant and Transport Division, which government has agreed to, then all the roads will be sealed by the department of works.” Nali said funding would be looked into.