The Transport and Infrastructure ministry reckons the ambitious road plan will create demand for engineers, surveyors, technicians, machine operators and labourers, easing biting unemployment among Kenya’s growing population.

The project is expected to start in December to enhance connectivity, promote trade and attract investment by reducing the cost of doing business.

A new financing model dubbed annuity concessions has been crafted to accelerate the construction and will see contractors design, build, finance, operate and maintain the roads for some time, with the Treasury acting as a guarantor for their bank loans.

“We expect about 137,000 jobs to be created directly by the annuity programme during the construction,” said Kenya Rural Roads Authority’s (Kerra) director general Mwangi Maingi in an interview.

Aside from accelerating the pace of infrastructure development through a steady flow of cash upfront, the annuity model will see the State transfer construction, operation and maintenance risks to the private sector.

Road construction in Kenya has often lagged due to cash shortfalls, with only 14,100km or 8.7 per cent of the total network being tarmacked.

Skills gap in technical fields has also been a problem, prompting private investors to set up technical training centres.

Toyota Kenya last month opened an academy in Nairobi to train youth on earthmoving machinery and car maintenance.

Kerra, which is the agency in charge or rural roads construction, noted that about 3060 units of construction equipment would be needed. They include earth-movers, excavators, rollers and concrete equipment, watering the market for dealers in these products.

New demand will also be created with the construction of the Sh327 billion new railway line linking Mombasa to Nairobi that is targeted to employ about 30,000 local workers. Their recruitment will start in October.

The first phase of the roads upgrade in this fiscal year will create 29,000 jobs during which time a fifth of the total network is expected to be built, ministry estimates show.

The jobs will increase in the subsequent phases with 43,750 workers earmarked for a 3,000km stretch in the 2015/16 fiscal year and another 64,250 employees to build the remaining 5,000km by 2017.

Highways will account for a fifth of the proposed roads meant to boost interconnectivity and open up remote areas and cut transport costs for business growth.

The new jobs will help ease the pain of unemployment, especially among youth and women for whom 30 per cent of the contracts will be reserved as part of government efforts to deal with the jobs crisis.