Upgrading of 121km Merille River-Marsabit road to ease trade between Kenya and Ethiopia

Construction workers from Jiangxi Zhongmei Engineering Construction Company Ltd along the Turbi-Marsabit road that borders the area. [PHOTO: JAMES WANZALA]

Upgrading of the Sh13.7 billion Merille-Marsabit Road is scheduled for completion by early 2016, Kenya National Highway’s Authority officials (KeNHA) have said. This follows a visit by top KeNHA officials, where they were briefed that the 121Km road is 32 per cent complete, having commenced in January last year.

The road that begins at Merille River and runs in a northerly direction through Logologo to Marsabit, constitutes the second section of the 501km road from Isiolo to Moyale and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The road was commissioned by former President Mwai Kibaki and jointly funded by the European Development Fund and the Government.

Resident engineer Donald Murphy said the road will ease travel to Moyale, which used to take four days but has since been reduced to a day. A spot check by the KeNHA team that visited the area earlier last week indicated the road will boost and ease exploitation of natural resources.

Petrol stations and banking institutions have already been set up, owing to an increase in the number of buses traversing the road. Linking Mombasa Port and Nairobi to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the corridor will offer an alternative to importers and exporters from Mombasa as well as  boost regional economic integration by reducing transport and shipping costs between Kenya and Ethiopia.

Numerous challenges

This will in turn reduce transit time for imports and exports and increase the volume of Ethiopian goods transiting through Mombasa port. Eng Murphy noted the upgrading of the 121Km project is a 50 years’ dream to the locals though numerous challenges have hampered their work progress. These included heavy rains, water scarcity on the project road - the site being in a remote that resulted to network problems that was resolved in March this year. 

He said water is only found at Merille River and at Malgis River which are seasonal. Boreholes provide water for the inhabitants and for construction.