The Consumer Federation of Kenya has raised objections to the proposed charges of toll fees on major roads in the country.
In a letter to the national Assembly the lobby wants the parliament to rescind a decision of the Committee on Delegated Legislation urging MPS to pass the proposed law.
The National Assembly’s Committee on Delegated Legislation last week approved the Public Finance Management (National Road Toll Fund) Regulations 2021. Paving way for toll charges in major roads.
“We write to seek your urgent intervention by stopping possibility of tabling them either as an agenda at the House Business Committee and or putting the impugned Regulations to a plenary vote on various grounds” said Stephen Mutoro the Secretary General of COFEK in the letter to the speaker of the National Assembly.
According to the consumer protection lobby the said Public Finance Management (National Road Toll Fund), Regulations 2021 fatally fail to meet the threshold of public participation as envisaged under article 10 of the Constitution of Kenya (CoK) together with other National Values especially on accountability and transparency.
The proposed law seeks to empower the Transport Cabinet Secretary to declare any road or a portion, including a bridge or tunnel on a public road, as a toll road.
However, the body argues that the offending regulations are brought within the realm of Article 201 of the Constitution, merely for taxation basis, without appreciating that infrastructure development and management is neither a preserve, core function nor a direct mandate of the National Treasury.
“The road tolls are discriminatory, especially where options do not exist, and offend provisions of Article 27(4) of the Constituion of Kenya. The road tolls are a private arrangement. That is the very reason they come through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) procurement framework.” Argued COFEK.
According to the state the special tolling fund will be used to finance maintenance of the highways and repayment of other roads built by private contractors but fail to generate enough funds to repay investors due to low number of users.
Among the Roads the bill seeks to tap include Nairobi-Nakuru road, Nairobi-Mombasa road, Nairobi-Thika road, Jogoo Road, Langata Road Ngong Roadand Nairobi’s Southern Bypass are among the highways where motorists may soon start paying if the regulations are passed by a committee of the whole house.
Mutoro says that handing over such public resources, without express approval of the people of Kenya, to foreign firms and or foreigners to reap where they never sowed is insensitive and a daylight robbery on the people of Kenya. Parliament has a sacred
“To purport to privatize a public road and or infrastructure either built on taxpayers’ funds and or loans shouldered by the public amounts to sedition and is, at best, unlawful amendment of Article 1, of the Constitution which emphasizes the sovereignty of the Kenyan people.”
Kenyan Business Feed is the top Kenyan Business Blog. We share news from Kenya and across the region. To contact us with any alert, please email us to [email protected]