Urban roads in the four main cities of Kenya (Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Eldoret) have deteriorated significantly in recent years due to neglect of routine maintenance, lack of sufficient funding, and inadequately trained personnel. This situation has created a huge backlog of deferred road maintenance work. Over half the urban roads in the four cities are in poor condition and require major rehabilitation just to bring them back to a maintainable condition. There is an urgent need to address skills at all levels of the maintenance units of these cities, but the organization of the maintenance units makes this objective difficult to achieve. Lines of authority create confusion, and informal channels of communication are often used just to complete any work. Many positions in the maintenance department remain open or are staffed by untrained or inexperienced personnel. The authors led a Ministry of Local Government and World Bank-sponsored team that recommended a substantial reorganization of the management and organization to deliver road maintenance services in these four cities. The team estimated that the cost of eliminating the road maintenance backlog in the four cities and re-equipping them for routine maintenance will exceed U.S. $200 million. With such a large sum at stake, the need to organize and simplify the maintenance function becomes paramount. Because other developing countries face similar problems, the paper focuses on steps recommended to: set up low cost management and road maintenance methods and improve training at all levels. (A)
Samenvatting