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Contractor of ‘swimming pool’ road shifts blame on the rain and politicians


The contractor of the Mwiki-Kasarani road who abandoned site leaving a huge pit full of water has said heavy rains forced her to stop the works.

While reacting to Nairobi News’ story on the abandoned site, the contractor said she had just excavated when the rains started forcing her to buy time to drain the stagnant water.

“We were awarded this contract three months ago by KURA and we are supposed to complete it in six months. We have already rehabilitated some sections of the road from Njiru. Last week we received guidelines on the maternity area section stating that we should do a new road for that particular section,” the contractor told Nairobi News.

“We started by excavating then the night before the day we were to layer the stones it rained heavily forcing us to start working on draining the water,” she said.

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Kasarani road turns into ‘swimming pool’ after contractor abandons site

The contractor, who said she could not reveal the name of her company, accused politicians in the area of interfering with the construction works saying she has been receiving calls from different people and thus cannot reveal her name and that of the company.

On the creation of a diversion, the contractor said she had provided one but another contractor working on a different road adjacent to hers invaded the diversion making it hard for motorists to use it.

“We have been having problems working on the site with a national government contract while the other contractor is under a county government contract. That aside, we have managed to drain the water and have layered the stones. By Friday if it doesn’t rain heavily again we shall be done with this maternity section and will proceed to rehabilitate the rest of the road and complete in good time,” she said.

Motorists have been spending upto 30 minutes on the stretch of road which normally takes less than five minutes to drive through.

Matatu operators had on Tuesday told Nairobi News that the poor state of the road has decreased their daily trips from 10 to eight with some having to drop off passengers when they find a car stuck on the sidewalks that are being used as diversions.