Counties visiting Laikipia to benchmarking on leasing of equipment

By TMJ Senior Reporter in Igwamiti

With only two years left, counties are battling on how they will deliver the promises made to the electorate.

Laikipia County Government is working efforts to provide quality roads to meet the expectation of the locals in the vast region bordering Isiolo, Meru and Samburu counties.

Under the leadership of Governor Ndiritu Muriithi, Laikipia is one of the counties that moved away from contracting for road works, settling on leasing programme for equipment, in pursuit for the effective service delivery mission.

Last year, the governor commissioned the model of leasing equipment after tedious processing to settle on the best partner, to save the county from be charged exorbitantly by the commercial contractors.

Ndiritu said it took him a year to come up with the concept of lease programme and which was found fit to deal with the challenges in the county.

“Under this concept some of the security roads in Laikipia West have been worked on and the situation has since improved,” said the Governor.

County Secretary Karanja Njora, the governor said is the supervisor of the programme to ensure it is effective service delivery.

The programme met opposition from contractors and blogger who questioned why the county government denied investors who had bought earth moving equipment for service delivery.

“We have done approximately 500 kilometers of road have been done with less than Sh50million,” said Mr Ndiritu.

Njora said the programme has opened the interior parts of Laikipia which had been declared the worse by the electorates.

“In the concept of the leasing programme cost of working on a kilometer of the road does not exceed Sh700,000,” said Mr Njora.

Njora said 395.65 kilometers of road have been graded, with another 132.6 kilometers graveled in a project coordinated by Eng Duncan Muturi.

The cost of the works is less than Sh50 million, said Njora estimating the contractors could have paid Sh300 million.

“Following the success in the road programme, the county is working on the introduction of leasing medical equipment which will be placed in all health facilitates,” said Njora.

Muturi on his part said 90 percent of the roads in Umande Ward have been worked on.

“We are working on to increase the number of equipment to ensure within a short time the whole county will be covered,” said Muturi.

Table below shows work is done through the leasing programme between November 4, 2019, and August 14, 2020

No	Ward	KM (Graded)	KM (Graveled)
1	Salama	31.9	26
2	Ol Moran	48.3	30.2
3	Thingithu	7.4	6.8
4	Marmanet	37	15.3
5	Umande	27.5	22.25
6	Tigithi	74.8	3.65
7	Segera	5.2	6.6
8	Mukogodo East	7.5	3.5
9	Sossian	48.4	0
10	Githiga	20	0
11	Nanyuki	4.6	0.45