afrol News, 27 October - Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has today announced that east African country needs to spend about US$4.5 billion over next five years to develop its various ramshackle infrastructure in order to grow economy.

"This means that we need about 72 billion shillings every financial year for infrastructure development," Mr Kibaki told country's first conference on infrastructure bonds.

His government, which is much criticised for bad roads and delays at its port, has based its long-term economic growth strategy on provision of a working infrastructure.

"It is clear that financing requirements for this program are enormous and cannot be met by government alone. We will soon be launching regulations for Public Private Partnerships that will provide a framework for the business community to invest in public projects," he said.

During 2008-2012 period, Mr Kibaki said there would be building or upgrading work on 64,500 km of roads, which would cost 186 billion shillings.

The money he said would also be spent on modernising and expanding rail network, development of Mombasa port and construction of a second one at Lamu.

The east African nation hopes to issue several bonds this financial year including its first sovereign bond for $500 million to finance some of those plans.

President Kibaki called on officials from different government departments attending two-day conference to learn how they could tap capital markets to fund infrastructure projects.

He pledged to support public sector agencies that were still struggling to improve their efficiency, management capacities and return to profitability.

"We expect those who provide critical infrastructure services to obtain first-hand knowledge and best practice ideas on how capital markets financing process works," Kenyan leader said.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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