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National Road Fund Agency (formerly known as National Roads Board) was established in 2002 to manage and administer the Road Fund. The NRFA has additional responsibilities to co-ordinate and manage various donor financed programmes. Amongst these additional responsibilities is that of management of the ten-year Road Sector Investment Programme (ROADSIP) which is the NFRA’s most ambitious programme.
ROADSIP consists of funds from the Fuel Levy, loans from international banks like the World Bank, donor communities like European Union, DANIDA, NORAD, Japan, Germany etc. ROADSIP I started under NRB in March 1998 and was scheduled to end in 2003 at a cost of about US$520 million. During this period, concentration was on the core road network, which was estimated at 33,500km. The objectives of the programme are well defined in the ROADSIP II Bankable Document. Prior to the formation of the three new road agencies, the National Roads Board played the role of funding agency established under a statutory instrument and funded programmes from Government Departments. These were Roads Department under the Ministry of Works and Supply and the Department of Infrastructure and Support Services under the Ministry of Local Government and Housing which played the role of implementing agencies. In ROADSIP I, there were 81 authorities that dealt in roads and this created problems in terms of coordination and financing of roads, as different players were funding roads in isolation. Some of these roads could not be put on sustainable maintenance because their existence was not known to the Funding Agency. This fragmentation was perpetuated by not having a Transport Policy in place. In May 2000, Government promulgated a Transport Policy and this gave birth to the creation of the three Agencies through Acts of Parliament. The Road Traffic Act No. 11 of 2002 created the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA), the Public Roads Act No. 12 of 2002 created the Road Development Agency which is now responsible for all roads in the country. However, section 73 of the Public Roads Act allows the Agency to delegate authority to other institutions. The National Road Fund Act No. 13 of 2002 created the National Road Fund Agency which is responsible for administering and managing all financial resources in the road sector. Bureaucracy and red tape, which characterised operations of the public service, could not go hand in hand with the meaningful and effective reforms in the road sector to achieve the desired results. It was therefore decided to overhaul the road sector agencies and make them semi-autonomous institutions able to work efficiently, able to hire staff and able to set own conditions of service suitable to attract and retain suitably qualified/experienced staff. Our values have been our greatest strength and dedicated staff members have been invaluable assets to the Agency. |
