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ed road maintenance program and hence on the need to define a core road network that users are willing and able to fully finance. In this arrangement therefore, non-core roads should then either receive minimal maintenance or be handed over to lower levels of government.

3.2 Financing New Investment
There are sound economic reasons for wanting to finance road improvement and extension by taxing those who benefit. There are also sound economic reasons for wanting to finance increased road capacity on congested roads through congestion charges. In the case of inter-urban roads, it is difficult to confine charges to beneficiaries, except on roads that carry high volumes of traffic (which therefore lend themselves to tolling).

The choice of financing instruments for overall inter-urban network therefore boils down to either financing all the new investments from the general taxes (channeled through government development budget) or financing new investments by charging all the road users. Our frameworks suggests that only by forcing road users to pay the full costs of using the road network - including the cost of investment - will the size of the network be constrained to what is affordable and only then, will essential investments be carried out regardless of the state of the government budget and new roads be constructed only when resources are available for maintenance.

For local government roads, the overriding objective concerning new investment should be to ensure that local governments undertake only priority projects. Local governments should therefore be required to demonstrate the priority of their investment programs by paying part of the costs from local revenues (e.g. land rates, congestion charges or other forms of property tax). The balance of the expenditure should then be financed by the road tariff or through government development budget.

3.3 Financing Road Rehabilitation
Kenya has a large backlog of deferred maintenance. Ministry of Roads and Public Works' estimates show that backlog maintenance in 2007 for instance required a staggering Kshs. 150billion. Given that the government is short of fiscal revenue at the moment, it has four possible conventional financing options:

Re-allocating existing spending from new construction to rehabilitation

Seeking development partner- financial loans and grants.

Sale/issuance of infrastructure bonds

Relying on the road tariff.

Option one offers little hope due to the political interest that new construction elicits. The second option is already in use with development partners financing much of the on-going rehabilitation programs. In the short term the government is servicing such loans from the general tax revenues. This means that other sectors are being taxed to finance road rehabilitation programs. This practice is not sustainable under the present fiscal conditions and in the long term. Besides, donor financing will not be available indefinitely. This leaves us with two realistic long term options; financing road rehabilitation programs in the country through the issuance of infrastructure bonds and through the road tariff. Ultimately, these two options should lead to initiation of a functional public-private sector partnership (PPP) in funding of road network infrastructure in Kenya.

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