{"id":140465,"date":"2026-05-10T03:02:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/senate-committee-pushes-for-49pc-fuel-levy-share-to-counties-in-proposed-roads-bill\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T03:02:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:02:41","slug":"senate-committee-pushes-for-49pc-fuel-levy-share-to-counties-in-proposed-roads-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/senate-committee-pushes-for-49pc-fuel-levy-share-to-counties-in-proposed-roads-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate committee pushes for 49pc Fuel Levy share to counties in proposed Roads Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya May 10 \u2013 A sharp debate has emerged over the sharing of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) after the Senate Standing Committee on Roads, Transportation and Housing proposed that county governments receive 49 per cent of the fuel levy allocation under the proposed Roads Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The proposal was unveiled during an ongoing stakeholder retreat in Machakos County, where the Ministry of Roads and Transport presented a competing formula recommending that counties receive only 15 per cent of the fund.<\/p>\n

The Committee, which is currently conducting public participation on the Roads Act (Amendment) Bill, National Assembly Bill No. 34 of 2025, said it had already received submissions from the Ministry of Roads and Transport, the Council of Governors and the Commission on Revenue Allocation.<\/p>\n

After analysing the memoranda and reviewing the Bill, senators identified three major issues requiring resolution \u2014 the apportionment of the fuel levy, the manner of apportionment and the classification of roads.<\/p>\n

Under the Committee\u2019s proposal, the National Government would receive 51 per cent of the fuel levy while county governments would receive 49 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the functions that were being performed by KeRRA and a larger part of KURA are now functions of the County Governments therefore the resources should follow the functions,\u201d the Committee proposed.<\/p>\n

The Committee further proposed that the National Government\u2019s 51 per cent share be distributed among national agencies with Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) receiving 38 per cent, Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA) 4 per cent, the Kenya Roads Board 2 per cent, Kenya Wildlife Service 1 per cent and the Department of Roads and Committee on Roads receiving 6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Under the county allocation framework, County Rural Roads would receive 32 per cent, County Urban Roads 10 per cent and Roads Committees 7 per cent.<\/p>\n

The Committee also resolved that funds should be allocated directly from the Fuel Levy Fund rather than through the Kenya Roads Board Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Committee will be moving consequential amendment to the RMLF Act to reflect these changes,\u201d Chairman Eddy Oketch stated.<\/p>\n

The recommendations place the Senate Committee on a collision course with the Ministry of Roads and Transport, which in its submission through Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir defended a scientific allocation model based on traffic volumes, road condition, network type and asset value.<\/p>\n

The Minister argued that although county roads account for nearly 76 per cent of the country\u2019s road network by length, national trunk roads carry the bulk of motorised traffic and require significantly higher maintenance costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ministry recommends that County Governments be expressly recognised as beneficiaries of the RMLF,\u201d the Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir stated, while proposing an allocation of 84.98 per cent to national trunk roads and 15.02 per cent to counties.<\/p>\n

The Ministry also proposed a complex classification system dividing roads into national trunk roads under Classes S, A, B and C and county roads under Classes D, E, F and G.
However, the Senate Committee rejected the proposed structure, saying it was too complicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Committee resolved that the current classification of roads as proposed by the ministry is too complicated and therefore there is a need to come up with a simpler way of classifying roads that takes into consideration usage rather than location,\u201d the Committee stated.<\/p>\n

The retreat comes against the backdrop of the High Court judgment delivered in June 2025 in the case of Issa Elanyi Chemao & Others v National Assembly & Others, which declared that county governments should be recognised as beneficiaries of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal later suspended implementation of the judgment for 12 months to allow Parliament to align existing laws with the Constitution.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NAIROBI, Kenya May 10 \u2013 A sharp debate has emerged over the sharing of the Road Maintenance Levy Fund (RMLF) after the Senate Standing Committee on Roads, Transportation and Housing proposed that county governments receive 49 per cent of the fuel levy allocation under the proposed Roads Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025. The proposal was unveiled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}