Siaya County opens multi-million roads

Siaya County Governor Cornel Rasanga. [File, Standard]

More than 120 kilometers of new roads have been opened by the Siaya county government.

Another 716 kilometers of roads are being maintained by the devolved unit, putting the total cost of both projects at Sh1.5 billion.

The Sh1.5 billion includes the road projects rolled over from the financial year 2017/2018.

According to the county officials in the roads department, they have made great strides in opening up rural areas through carpeting of the feeder roads and upgrading others.

A move that has made it possible for farmers and other traders to move their products with ease to the markets.

Speaking to the press in East Ugenya where he launched Sh10 million road projects (Nzoia to Inungo and Ligega to Ohuru to Luthehe), Governor Cornel Rasanga said the roads will go a long way to ease the facilitation of the transport sector across the county and to the neighbouring counties. 

"The boda-boda industry, which has become one of the employers to the youth will now do their business with less expenditure in repairs that in most cases come as a result of poor road conditions," said Rasanga.

The scope of the works for the roads constructions usually include, bush clearing, heavy grading, scour check construction, culvert installation, graveling, and compaction.

Chief Officer for roads Engineer James Onyango said that with ease of access the county has established market places and therefore improving the agriculture sector.

"The local economy in the county has improved and our socio-economic activities across the whole county have improved. It has also enabled the national and county to provide their services in otherwise unreachable areas," said Engineer Onyango.

The chief officer noted that more hospitals, schools, commercial centers tourist and cultural attraction sites like Got Ramogi are now easily accessible because of the road expansion program by the county Government.

"The county can now easily respond to all forms of distress calls and emergencies in any part of the county," he added.

The chief officer at the same time said that the county was in the process of embracing a new technology that will cut construction costs by up to 50 percent with the roads having a durability of 40 years.

Engineer Onyango explained that the county will borrow nano saline modified technology from South Africa that will offer a permanent solution to the road problems in the county.

"It is a technology that uses local materials with bitumen and the nano saline emulsion. We are negotiating with the company to come and produce the emulsion in Siaya and we hope the technology will be adopted in all the Lake Region Economic Bloc counties. At the moment we are working on the legal and technical workgroups to liaise with this company to share the information to open up the process to use this technology," he said.