Overloading of trucks ferrying sand along the Doldol-Nanyuki road has been cited as a major factor causing road damage leading to the poor state of the 60-kilometre road.
Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KeRRA) Laikipia Regional Manager Engineer James Kabiru told a County Development Implementation and Coordination Committee (CDICC) meeting held in Nanyuki on Tuesday that lorry drivers ferrying sand were taking advantage of the lack of a weighbridge along the road to carry excess load than the axle limits.
“Sometimes we have had to erect temporary weighbridges but the trucks avoid transporting sand until they are withdrawn. You will mostly find them ferrying the sand at night when there’s no one on the road to monitor the load capacity,” Eng. Kabiru told the meeting.
He added that the government was in the process of erecting a permanent 24-hour weighbridge along the road in a bid to minimize the damage caused by trucks carrying excess load.
“The road has already been identified as a candidate for a permanent weighbridge and we expect it to be in place soon,” he added.
Eng. Kabiru further said that his agency has been having dialogue with lorry owners and drivers on the need to adhere to the required axle load weight but regretted that the conversations have not yielded much since the same drivers keep on flouting the same.
The road engineer made the remarks after presenting a progress report to the committee on the status of ongoing road construction in the county, among which a 15-kilometre section of the road from Naibor to Il Polei is being upgraded to bitumen standards at a cost of 596.6 million.
Eng. Kabiru added that a total of eight roads in the county with a combined length of 223 kilometres were under contract for upgrading to bitumen standards at a cost of Sh33.6 billion.
Some of the roads being upgraded include the 50-kilometre Lamuria-Ngobit-Withare road which is 98 percent complete and the 45-kilometre long Naromoru-Babiti/Nairutia-Karai/Kiawara-Muringa road has been completed.
Laikipia County Commissioner Joseph Kanyiri who chaired the CDICC meeting tasked KeRRA to furnish the committee with axle load regulations for Lorries, so that law enforcers can be tasked with enforcing the mandate on the particular road.
