A Nigerian contractor has been charged with abandoning the job a road project in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, that has inflicted significant losses upon manufacturers and transporters in this area.

The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) announces Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) as the responsible for the failure to complete works on the Enterprise-Likoni road junction, five years after the project was started – on account of the poor state of the road some firms have been losing lots of businesses.

“Due to the bad state of Eastgate Road off Mombasa Road, the involved companies have lost about 30 percent of their business. Currently, three hours is the time that takes the trucks to move from Mlolongo to Inland Container Depot (ICD) which is unbelievably more than the normal required time of 15 minutes of drive.” KAM chairman Sachen Gudka said.

“The trucks going towards ICD are queuing from Mlolongo towards ICD through a diversion as Eastgate is not functional.”
Now KAM is requesting the government to immediately supervise the completion of the vital project to alleviate business losses.

The Enterprise-Likoni road job is a part of the Sh4.56 billion Eastern Missing Link roads project, which had already stared in 2013, that also includes the upgrade of 16 kilometers of roads in Industrial Area, and Parklands and parts of the CBD.

Even though RCC had never conducted any road construction work in Kenya, it was given the job to, as a part of conditions stimulated by the European Union (EU), that financed the project through a grant of Sh3.4 billion – with Kenya settling the balance.

EU demanded a contractor must be from an EU state member or an affiliate of a European company. RCC is a subsidiary of SBI International Holdings AG which its headquarter is in Switzerland, and it also pursues an interest in construction and other sectors. SBI currently is engaged in so many projects in various countries.

In April, the Ministry of Infrastructure stated cancelation of the contract for the 6.1km Enterprise Road stretch, which is a vital artery to Nairobi’s Industrial Area, due to the imposed delays by RCC.

The Kenya Urban Roads Authority (Kura), the supervising director of the project, has previously blamed the delays on differences between it and RCC amid reports that the Nigerian company had received advance payment for the project.