THINGITHU’S ROADS: WHEN THE RAINS COME, THE ROAD TELLS THE STORY

 CIVICLENS GAZETTE

Tuesday, 29 September 2026

There is a moment in Thingithu when the rain begins to fall and the road suddenly becomes everyone's concern. Water gathers where it should not. Drainage channels struggle to carry the flow. Potholes become pools. A journey that should take minutes can become an exercise in patience, caution and improvisation.

For residents of Thingithu Ward, this is not a new story.

For years, residents have raised concerns about poor roads, inadequate drainage and the condition of infrastructure in different parts of the ward. The complaints are familiar because the problems themselves have been familiar: roads requiring regular maintenance, drainage systems that struggle during heavy rainfall and sections where water runoff contributes to the deterioration of already vulnerable roads.

But there is another side to the story.

Government documents show that roads and drainage have not been ignored in Laikipia County's planning and budgeting process. Money has been allocated for road works and maintenance. Projects have been listed. Residents have participated in budget consultations and submitted specific infrastructure demands.

The question, therefore, is no longer simply whether Thingithu residents have asked for better roads.

They have.

The bigger question is whether the money, plans and promises appearing on official documents are translating into infrastructure that residents can actually see, use and depend on.

THE COMPLAINTS ARE ON RECORD

During the county's public participation process for the 2025/26 financial year, residents of Thingithu raised several infrastructure concerns.

Among the issues submitted were requests to grade, gravel and construct drainage along roads within the Ruai area; improve the Ruai-Baraka Road; construct drainage and install culverts along the Sweetwaters-Ruai Road; and address infrastructure problems affecting the ward.

These requests appear in the county government's official public participation report for the 2025/26 financial year.

That detail is important.

It means the concerns are not simply stories circulating on social media or claims made during political meetings. They form part of the official record of what residents told the county government they needed.

And roads were not the only concern.

Drainage featured prominently.

That makes sense. A road and its drainage system are inseparable. A road can be graded and gravelled today, but if rainwater has nowhere to go, the same road can quickly begin to deteriorate.

Water will always find a path.

If that path is the middle of the road, residents eventually pay the price.

THE MONEY IS IN THE DOCUMENTS

Laikipia County's 2024/25 Citizen Budget provides a detailed picture of planned infrastructure investment in Thingithu.

The document allocated KSh24.116 million for grading, murraming and other road works across Thingithu Ward. The listed roads included Dispensary Road-Kalimoni, Mwai Tosha, Njoguini, Kuruchwa, AP Line, Ruai, Miharati, Kagondu, Baraka Upper Area, Baraka Lower Area-Njoguini Junction-Air Base Fence Road, Burugutia-Cattle Dip, Nabosa, Kirimo and Muchina roads.

The same budget document listed KSh3 million for road maintenance through leased equipment and KSh1.667 million for road maintenance and upgrading using leased equipment.

It also provided KSh14.3 million for periodic maintenance of roads and drainages in Ruai, Thingithu Estate, Kirimo Estate and Blue Gum Estate.

Those are not small figures.

But there is an important distinction that must not be lost in the debate.

An allocation is not the same thing as completed work.

A budget tells us what government planned or provided for. It does not automatically prove that every planned kilometre was completed, that every drainage channel was constructed or that every shilling was spent exactly as initially planned.

That distinction is central to any serious discussion about public development.

THE PROBLEM KEEPS RETURNING

The county's 2025/26 financial documents show that roads and drainage remained part of the development conversation.

The county's approved first supplementary budget for FY2025/26 included KSh24.5 million for grading, gravelling, murraming, drainage works and routine maintenance across Thingithu Ward.

There is something revealing about that.

The same problems residents have been talking about continue to appear in official budgets.

Road maintenance.

Grading.

Drainage.

Routine maintenance.

Again.

And again.

This does not, by itself, prove that the county government has failed to work on the roads. It does show, however, that these infrastructure needs remain significant enough to require continued budgetary attention.

For the resident walking along a muddy road, however, a budget document can feel very far away.

The real test comes when the rain falls.

Can the water move?

Can vehicles pass?

Can pedestrians walk safely?

Can traders move their goods?

Can children get to school without navigating flooded or badly damaged sections?

Those are the questions that turn an allocation into a real measure of development.

THINGITHU'S DEVELOPMENT NUMBERS TELL A LARGER STORY

Laikipia County's official project-monitoring records provide another useful window into development spending associated with Thingithu Ward.

For FY2022/23, the county project records contain 11 projects tagged to Thingithu, with combined budget values of approximately KSh23 million.

For FY2023/24, 12 Thingithu-tagged projects carried combined budget values of approximately KSh25.7 million.

For FY2024/25, the records contain 25 Thingithu-tagged projects with combined budget values of approximately KSh65.4 million.

Taken together, the project-monitoring records amount to approximately KSh114.2 million across the three financial years.

But this figure requires an important explanation.

It should not be presented as a single official figure described by the county as "the total amount allocated to Thingithu Ward."

It is a calculation of the budget values attached to projects explicitly tagged to Thingithu in the county's project-monitoring records.

Those projects cover several sectors, including roads, health, agriculture, environmental services and other development activities. Some are also connected to the wider Nanyuki urban area.

That means the KSh114.2 million figure is useful for understanding the scale of projects recorded against the ward, but it should not be confused with money actually spent, money exclusively dedicated to roads or money that residents have necessarily seen translated into completed infrastructure.

This distinction matters.

Good journalism should follow the money, but it must also follow the project.

A ROAD IS MORE THAN A ROAD

It is easy to look at a pothole and see only a pothole.

For the person running a small business, it can be a transport cost.

For a farmer, it can affect how quickly produce reaches the market.

For a parent, it can become a safety concern.

For someone travelling to a health facility, a damaged road can make an already difficult journey harder.

And for the county government, poor roads mean repeated maintenance costs.

That is why the debate around Thingithu's roads should not be reduced to politics.

It is about the everyday machinery of a functioning community.

A road connects people to opportunity.

A drainage system protects that road.

When either fails, the consequences spread.

DRAINAGE: THE INFRASTRUCTURE PEOPLE NOTICE ONLY WHEN IT FAILS

Drainage is perhaps the least glamorous part of public infrastructure.

Nobody holds a celebration because a culvert successfully carried rainwater away from a road.

Nobody takes photographs of a drainage channel simply because it worked exactly as it was designed to.

But when it fails, everyone notices.

Water crosses roads.

Road surfaces weaken.

Mud accumulates.

Vehicles struggle.

Businesses are affected.

Homes and public spaces can be exposed to runoff.

That is why the residents' repeated requests for drainage should not be treated as a secondary issue.

The county's public participation records specifically captured demands for drainage and culvert works around Ruai and along the Sweetwaters-Ruai Road.

Those requests also demonstrate something else: residents know their own infrastructure problems.

They know which roads flood.

They know where water collects.

They know which sections become difficult during heavy rainfall.

And when public participation is meaningful, that local knowledge should form part of the planning process.

THE QUESTION OF IMPLEMENTATION

Thingithu now has a paper trail.

There are budget documents.

There are project records.

There are public participation reports.

There are road and drainage allocations.

The next step is accountability.

How much money was actually released?

Which roads were worked on?

How many kilometres were completed?

Which contractor or county department handled the work?

When did the work begin?

When was it supposed to end?

Was it completed?

If it was completed, what condition is the road in today?

And where money was allocated but work was not completed, what happened?

These are not hostile questions.

They are ordinary questions in a functioning democracy.

Public money belongs to the public. Residents therefore have every right to ask how it was planned, spent and converted into services.

The county government itself publishes budget estimates, development plans, citizen budgets and budget implementation reports through its official Finance, County Planning and Development structures.

That means the information needed for serious accountability is not supposed to remain hidden.

The challenge is turning documents into understandable information that ordinary residents can use.

THINGITHU CANNOT EAT A BUDGET DOCUMENT

A budget allocation cannot carry a passenger.

A development plan cannot take a child to school.

A project number cannot transport vegetables to the market.

A figure written against a road cannot, by itself, fix a drainage channel.

Those things happen only when planning becomes implementation.

That is where the conversation in Thingithu should now move.

Not away from the official figures, but deeper into them.

If KSh24.116 million was provided for road works in 2024/25, residents deserve to know what that money delivered.

If KSh14.3 million was provided for periodic maintenance of roads and drainages in identified areas, residents deserve to know what was done.

If another KSh24.5 million appeared in the 2025/26 supplementary budget for grading, gravelling, murraming, drainage works and routine maintenance, residents deserve to follow the progress.

That is how public accountability should work.

The question should not be whether someone has made a promise.

The question should be whether the public can see the result.

THE ROAD WILL HAVE THE FINAL WORD

There is something brutally honest about a road.

It does not give interviews.

It does not attend political meetings.

It does not make promises.

It simply remains where it is.

If it is maintained, people notice.

If it is neglected, people notice.

If drainage works, people notice.

If water continues cutting across it every rainy season, people notice that too.

That is why the concerns being raised in Thingithu deserve more than another cycle of promises and counter-promises.

The official record shows that residents have raised road and drainage concerns. County budgets show that money has been allocated to road works and maintenance. Project records show that substantial development projects have been recorded against the ward.

The remaining question is the one that matters most to the people who live there:

What can they see on the ground?

For Thingithu residents, development will ultimately be judged not by the size of a budget document, but by the condition of the road outside their homes, the drainage beside their businesses and the ease with which they move through their ward.

When the next heavy rain comes, the answer will not be found in a speech.

It will be found on the road.

CIVICLENS GAZETTE
Tuesday, 29 September 2026