Kenya KES 180B Nairobi–Nakuru highway

President William Ruto on November 28, 2025 launched the Nairobi–Nakuru–Mau Summit and Nairobi–Maai Mahiu–Naivasha highway project under a public-private partnership structure. (president.go.ke) (citizen.digital) The project combines a 175-kilometer Nairobi–Nakuru–Mau Summit section with a 58-kilometer Rironi–Maai Mahiu–Naivasha section, for a total of 233 kilometers across Kiambu, Nyandarua and Nakuru counties. (kenha.co.ke) (president.go.ke) Kenya’s government has described it as an investment of more than KSh170 billion, while local coverage around the procurement decision also put the figure at about KSh180 billion. (president.go.ke) (the-star.co.ke) The road is being structured as a design-build-finance-operate-maintain-transfer concession, which means a private developer finances and runs it for a fixed period before handing it back. KeNHA’s disclosure says the corridor will be tolled under that model. (kenha.co.ke) That financing model became central after Kenya argued that paying through the national budget would take too long and new sovereign borrowing would add to debt pressure. Ruto said those constraints pushed the state toward private capital for the highway. (president.go.ke) The procurement moved in stages. KeNHA said two privately initiated proposals were received from Shandong Hi-Speed Road and Bridge International Engineering and from a consortium of China Road and Bridge Corporation with the National Social Security Fund trustees. (kenha.co.ke) On October 9, 2025, the Public-Private Partnership Committee approved the project for procurement under the PPP Act and backed the CRBC–NSSF consortium as preferred project proponent, subject to technical, financial, environmental, social and legal conditions. (kenha.co.ke) KeNHA’s project material also said motorists would face proposed tolls of KSh8 per kilometer, with a 1% annual escalation rate once the road is complete. That detail turned the project from a construction story into a pricing story for drivers and freight operators. (peopledaily.digital) (tuko.co.ke) The African Development Bank lists the highway as a 30-year PPP concession and says it is considering a senior loan of up to $150 million. The bank says the corridor now carries about 16,000 vehicles a day, with the busiest sections reaching 40,000. (afdb.org) The same African Development Bank project page says current travel times on the stretch can approach four hours and that the upgrade is expected to reduce travel time and vehicle operating costs sharply. (afdb.org) So the core of the story is narrower than the early pitch: Kenya did not just “advance” a KSh180 billion plan. It selected a preferred private consortium in October 2025 and formally launched the toll-road project in November 2025, with tolling and long-term private financing at the center. (kenha.co.ke) (president.go.ke)