Hooray, the Nanyuki-Rumuruti road is getting paved, we'll monitor closely

Our village path is getting paved, hooraaay! The news was published in local dailies last week, so it must be true, and the tenders were set to close yesterday. That is what the tender programme said.

Of course, we know what is written on paper and what happens on the ground often vary, because of something called tenderpreneurs. They are crooks in smart suits and distended bellies whose work is to sniff around for public projects where procurement of goods and services are involved.

Their job description is to find the right “investors,” which means pliant contractors who will receive a fraction of the contract money and asked to work with what they have. That is to say, a road that required a million bob to build is allocated some 400k, because the rest is stolen.

Unsurprisingly, this necessitates repairs even before the road is completed because the self-same crooks give it a clean bill of health at “inspection.” This is why most roads lack pedestrian walkways, lights, markings and guardrails, which are shaved off to recoup the stolen funds.

Since my interest in the village road is qualified, I can assure the tenderpreneurs who are waiting to fleece the project they better go look elsewhere. We shall name and shame them:by routinely updating Kenyans on the progress of the road construction.

After all, we are Kenyans, and Kenya is our business. The appropriate metaphor for our vigilance is that we will watch them as we monitor milk boiling in a pot.