By Joseph Githu for Kao news
Let’s talk
If we must borrow from China for infrastructure growth 3 things must happen, yes three solid conditions must be fulfilled
One 30% of the entire contract must be supplied by the locals, that includes human resource, raw materials and technical support, otherwise we shall be complaining of unemployment while we are actively providing employment in China!
Two, our professional in that particular field must work hand in hand with the professional from China for a technology transfer, it beats logic to keep producing civil engineers in our institutions of higher learning but keep paying engineers from China to do what local engineers can do……. infact we should have a technology transfer institute, this is where we get our young graduates into areas of expertise even in diffrent countries to go out there and bring the best practice home.
Three, we must accept to change our archaic ways of doing things, for example, it is proven now that filling roads with rocks is not a sustainable way of building long lasting roads, by now we all know that if we compact red soil and cement we make more durable roads than having lorries and lorries of hard-core rocks which after 6 months will break and the roads go back to the same dilapidated situation they were in.
I once asked a road engineer why they insist on building our roads with those rocks and some women who sit arranging them for months while the Chinese guys use red soil which is readily available at no cost and the engineer told me that it would be almost impossible to raise the bill of quantities….. so it’s all about money, we build in the most expensive way the most useless roads.
Let’s keep this discussion going.
It’s time to talk!
