Motorists will soon be required to pay toll charges in order to use major roads in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kiambi areas. According to Roads Principal Secretary Joseph Mbugua, toll charges on Kenyan roads will be introduced on four bypass roads in Nairobi and two highways that link Nairobi to the Central region.
“Thika, Southern Bypass, Eastern Bypass… all these [roads] will be critical for us. We cannot limit ourselves to only tolling newly constructed roads as one would say Thika Road is not as old as Mombasa Road,” said Mbugua.
He claimed that the main reason for the toll charges on Kenyan roads to acquire money for road maintenance. “Those roads, while finance differently from public-private partnerships (PPP) require maintenance which the financier cannot support,” he said.
“Today we are using a lot of money to maintain Thika Road. We need to create resources to address road maintenance and improve some of the auxiliary roads within the area.”
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This is not the first time that the national government is contemplating introducing toll charges on Kenyan roads. In March 2022, the Committee on Delegated Legislation approved the Public Finance Management (National Road Toll Fund) Regulations 2021.
These regulations were seeking to implement the Public Roads Toll Act, Cap 407, which guided the imposition of toll fees on major national roads through the establishment of the National Roads Toll Fund.
The roads that were to be targeted for toll charges included the Nairobi-Nakuru, Nairobi-Mombasa, Nairobi-Thika and Nairobi’s Southern Bypass, Jogoo Road, Lang’ata Road and Ngong Road.
“This means that both new (green-field) and existing roads (brownfields) can be subject to tolling programmes, always providing that these are demonstrated to be both economically and financially feasible and their social and environmental impacts are shown to be sustainable,” the National Treasury had said.
Currently, the Nairobi Expressway is the only major road that charges toll fees. A drive from Southern Bypass to Westlands costs around Sh330 on the Expressway while JKIA to Westlands is around Sh410. Mlolongo to Westlands and Syokimau to Westlands are costlier at around Sh500.
