It won’t be business as usual, contractors told

Kenya: Governor Ali Ibrahim Roba on Wednesday put on notice contractors in the county who do shoddy work after securing tenders.

Speaking after a three-day inspection tour of road projects in the county, the governor told contractors who fail to do their work as specified in the project plan that they will not be paid, and also forced to redo the work to the satisfaction of the county engineer.

Mr Roba led the county monitoring and evaluation committee to inspect a recently completed 577km of all weather-access murram roads, comprising of 15 roads that link six sub-counties.

During the tour, the governor ordered  five out of the 15 contractors undertaking the project to repeat some sections of the road, which appeared to be poorly done.

“Those contractors who think that they can do shoddy work and get away with it should know that those days are long gone. My government expects nothing less of perfect work done for the people,” he said.

He said his administration will blacklist any company found to be compromising the standard of public projects.

“I am really impressed by the work of most contractors and equally disappointed with a few. My government will leave no room for shoddy work,” said Roba.

He promised to carry out another inspection after the repeat work has been completed to ascertain if the job is done as required.

Governor Roba said contractors who will not adhere to the specifications in the Bills of Quantities will not be paid, and also risk losing business with the county government.

He blamed the many ‘white elephant’ projects dotting the county on monitoring and evaluation inspectors who had to be flown from the Nairobi.