This shoddily built road in Nairobi can easily kill you, thanks to KURA corruption
Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) has been riddled with corruption and looting that seems to go on unabated.
The Director-General of the roads agency Engineer Silas Kinoti has been at the helm in for more than four years most of it in an acting capacity. The short low esteemed man has overseen looting of great scales, he has also played shoddy works due to the high number of people KURA gives kick-backs to.
Most of the shoddy projects go unchallenged by EACC and the Kenya Roads Board (KRB) and Auditor General’s office.
There are many shoddily done roads that it is not easy to count. However, the newly completed Waiyaki Way-Red Hill Link road is one of the most shoddily done and dangerous.
https://kenyanbulletin.com/2020/08/21/chaos-at-kenya-urban-roads-authority-over-new-roads-project-scandal/
The road gobbled up billions of money only to be half done and signed off as complete by KURA.
One eagle-eyed Twitter user Ian Cox (@IanECox) exposed this in the thread we share below:-
The Waiyaki Way-Red Hill link road might be the most shoddy new road project I’ve seen. Built by China Wu Yi (@wu_ltd) at the cost of $6,000,000 per each of its 5 kms, parts of it may also be a public safety risk.
I can’t speak to the engineering and quality of the road base and surface itself, but parts of the project don’t seem to have been built to a specification that any @TransportKE or other engineer would or should have approved upon project completion.
Pic
Back in January, an earth retaining wall collapsed.
KURA said it was because of water accumulation behind the wall from a burst pipe. Wrong. It was because @wu_ltd used the same building blocks they use to build flats in Zimmerman. To cut that last corner.
Right now, a bit further down the road, the ground behind this retaining wall has begun sinking. (Also, why did the project waste money on motor vehicle grade crash barriers for the walking/bike lanes?)
China Wuyi Company Limited and its engineers know that one does not build earth retaining walls out of blocks of stone if the wall is more than… a METER?? It only takes the water erosion of the cement between a few blocks to lead to an entire wall collapsing.
Even solid poured cement retaining walls risk collapse if enough water is behind it. KURA, Kenya National Highways Authority (KENHA) and Transport Ministry engineers know this too.. these photos show they do. They started fixing the threat of erosion behind this wall, but didn’t finish before the rain.
Meanwhile, across the highway, erosion has already started eating away at the bricks above the retaining wall. Soon enough, the bricks will start pummeling the Mercedes and Land Cruisers below.
Most of the cattle dip tanks I’ve seen are better constructed than this drainage.
The entire project is riddled with sub-par construction, but as usual the pedestrians and cyclists are an afterthought. Retaining walls never built or half completed leading to erosion over the path. Potholes already appearing. Kenyans deserve better quality for their money.
