A former Cabinet minister who streamlined the Roads ministry during the reign of former President Daniel arap Moi is dead.
Andrew Kiptoon died on Saturday evening at a Nakuru hospital.
Gilbert Kiptoon said his father suffered a stroke in 2016 and in 2018 and died while undergoing treatment at War Memorial Hospital.
Kiptoon served as the Minister for Roads and Public Works from 1998 to 2000. He was the Baringo North MP from 1997 to 2002.
As minister for Roads, he initiated policies that created Kenya Urban Roads Authority, Kenya National Highway Authority and Kenya Rural Roads Authority.
His signature legislative idea was that five per cent of all revenues collected by the government through the fuel levy be shared equally among all constituencies for the maintenance of their roads.
The legislation changed road maintenance in Kenya which had been the preserve of the central government at the time.
According to Moi Cabinets, a publication by the Kenya Year Book Editorial Board, Kiptoon was an outspoken, honest and dedicated man.
The publication describes him as a man who spoke his mind and streamlined the Roads ministry.
Born on October 6, 1946, in Kapchepkoiywo in Kabartonjo, Baringo, Kiptoon started schooling in 1955 at The African Inland Church Mission School.
He sat the Kenya African Preliminary Examination in 1961 and proceeded to Alliance High School. In 1968, he joined the University of Nairobi and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in structural engineering.
After graduating, Kiptoon worked for four years as a consultant with Cowi Consult, a Danish engineering company that sent him to Denmark for a course in engineering.
He returned from Denmark in 1976 and set up a company known as Chauhan Kiptoon Consulting Engineers.
Along with other engineers, he was requested by the government to build…