The United States will finance the longest four-lane motorway in Kenya, which will also be the longest toll motorway on the entire African continent. The signing of the first funding package, with a deal between an American infrastructure company, Everstrong Capital, and another overseas financial fund, CPF Capital & Advisory, took place a few days ago, with an agreement for approximately 1 billion dollars (129 billion Kenyan shillings).
The motorway will connect Nairobi to Mombasa, i.e. the capital to the country's main port and Kenya's second city, for a total of 440 kilometres. It will probably run alongside the current ‘highway’, which is imaginatively called a motorway even though 90% of its length has only two lanes. The total cost of the operation is 464 billion shillings and it is not yet clear what the terms of the loan will be, obviously assuming, as in the case of the Nairobi expressway, that for a certain number of years the construction company will collect the toll at the toll booths.
In addition to revolutionising transport in the country's commercial and vital artery, this road route, which will be called ‘Usahihi’, which means ‘precision’ in Kiswahili, will have the hallmarks of sustainability, with wildlife corridors, electric vehicle charging and renewable energy infrastructure, according to the American builder. But above all it will allow vehicles to connect even more quickly along the so-called ‘East African corridor’ and allow those who want to reach Mombasa and vice versa from neighbouring landlocked countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia and South Sudan to do so more quickly and with preferential lanes. It is expected that the ‘Usahihi Expressway’ will reduce the travelling time between the two cities to a maximum of 5 hours, compared to the usual 10-12 hours.
During the signing of the agreement, the representatives of the two American companies revealed their intention to guarantee financing through loans from pension funds, investment banks and insurance companies.