A pothole repair machine being tested on Kenyatta Avenue yesterday. [David Njaaga, Standard]
The Nairobi county government has entered into a partnership that will see it repair roads in the region.
The U.S.$970,000 machinery reportedly seals damaged potholes in three to five minutes, a departure from pothole repair which currently involves manual digging using a road-rollers taking hours.
The Nairobi county government has entered into a partnership that will see it repair roads in the region.
An agreement signed with AEA Limited (formerly Avery East Africa) on Tuesday will see the company, known for its innovative Velocity Road Patching technology, lease or sell its machinery to the county for the restoration of city roads.
Addressing journalists during a demonstration on Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko said the deal with the TransCentury Group subsidiary to lease its cold asphalt-based VRP technologies will cut repair costs by up to 40 percent.
He said that the partnership was in line with his administration’s commitment to fixing the city’s road infrastructure through effective and cost-efficient technology.
“We are committed to working with infrastructure partners through various financing models to ensure that we uplift the basic road infrastructure,” said Governor Sonko.
He said Nairobi was among the few counties that had set aside billions of shillings for urban road repairs and looked to substantially cut down on expenditure on patching up roads.
AEA Ltd Managing Director Nicholas Kithinji said the company’s technology had been tried and tested in developed economies and was fully compliant with the National Highway Sector Scheme 13 and Code of Practice for Innovative Patching Systems.
