In a significant move towards regional infrastructure development, the Kenya National Highway Authority (KeNHA) is currently hosting a delegation from Mozambique and Zambia, sponsored by the Japan Corporation International Authority (JACIA).
The delegation visit marks collaboration across the region focusing on the development, rehabilitation and maintenance of national truck roads which is key to unlocking the economic potential of East Africa.
The visit was purposed to benchmark Kenya’s Axle Load Control practices, effective axle control, road maintenance and bridge maintenance.
Addressing the press at Juja Weighbridge, KeNHA’s Axle Load Assistant Director Engineer Michael Ngala emphasized to the EAC partner states the importance of uniformly complying with the EAC act to avoid overloaded vehicles crossing into the partner states.
“As KeNHA, we are guided by the East African community vehicle load Act 2016, and we are also guided by the traffic act CAP 403 that regulates the carriage of loads on our networks,” said Ngala.
Moses, a Zambian representative, highlighted the presence of weighbridges along Zambia’s main road corridors, from the Tanzania-Zambia boarder to Zimbabwe boarder. He added that they were still constructing additional weigh bridges in future.
“We have gone round and seen a lot of information, how unmanned sensors, weighing sensors are capturing information, how you are directing traffic, we have this information to take home and we hope to implement what we have learned here,” he said.
According to Moses, they have a lot to do to reach Kenya’s road system maintenance.
“We are going to take this experience back to our country, we will try to implement and improve our conditions.”
According to Evariste, a representative of National Roads Administration (Mozambique), they have taken a lot of experience from Kenya concerning bridge maintenance and Axle Load control.
“What we saw here is very important and we will take it back home and implement it to improve our roads. We have seen that the police here in Kenya were following and working with KeNHA in maintaining roads and ensuring that the trucks which are overloaded pass through the weighbridges. We will try and implement this when we go back to our country,” he said.
