Why expansion of Ngong Road has stalled
Construction work on Ngong Road has stalled following a tax disagreement between Kajiado County and a Japanese contractor.
The county has blocked the contractor from collecting building materials, claiming that cess has not been paid.
On Wednesday, senior Transport Ministry officials were holed up in a meeting with Governor Joseph Ole Lenku to resolve the stalemate, which is threatening the project funded by a grant from the Japanese government.
Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said officials were trying to resolve the dispute, which is said to have affected other projects, including the second phase of the standard gauge railway.
“We have some hitches on the collection of materials from Kajiado and we are in discussions with the governor to resolve them,” Mr Macharia said.
TAX EXEMPTIONS
The agreement for the grant was to get exemptions on taxes and levies, making the cess demand awkward and sparking outrage from the contractor, who has completed the first phase under similar terms.
The materials were reportedly sourced from the same spot that the country government is now demanding cess for.
The county is demanding over Sh2 million from the contractor for the murram collected up to December 2018 and various meetings between the governor and the construction firm have failed to break the stalemate.
The Nation has seen a letter by the contractor citing frustrations over the dispute.
“We would like to inform you that the transportation of our construction materials has been stopped by the county since Thursday, February, 21. Our driver has been arrested and taken to a county station in Ngong. They are requesting us to pay cess fees for the materials which we have mobilised up to December 2018 and a total amount of Sh2,046,000,” says the letter by project manager Naruhiko Aoyagi to the Kenya Urban Roads Authority.