Turner & Townsend, a global construction and management firm, has opened an office in Nairobi. The official launch took place last week and was attended by industry players in the property, infrastructure, mining and energy sectors.
Ian Donaldson, Turner & Townsend’s regional managing director for Africa, said that the launch was part of their expansion plans aimed at growing the business globally.
With headquarters in the United Kingdom, the firm has had a presence in Africa for 34 years and is involved in over 40 projects on the continent.
The projects are in the telecoms, oil and gas, infrastructure, housing, health, education, and hotel and leisure sectors.
He said they operate in the SADC (Southern African Development Community), East African Community (EAC) and West African regional economic blocs.
“Having expanded our business in SADC for many years, our primary focus at present is on EAC,” Donaldson said, noting that their focus in West Africa is Nigeria and Ghana.
Donaldson says South Africa has proved an important gateway for Turner & Townsend’s continued growth in Africa, with the Johannesburg office being the first of the regional offices globally to be established outside of the UK.
“The South African business began with a focus on the mining sector... However, the gateway into East Africa for us was our Uganda office, launched off the back of a project with Tullow Oil....”
Donaldson added: “With Kenya being the largest economy in East Africa, it became imperative for us to have a local office to grow our presence across EAC.”
Daimon Keith, Kenya country manager for Turner & Townsend Daimon Keith, said they would leverage on Kenya’s Vision 2030 that is keen on infrastructure development and promotion of public private partnership (PPP).
Keith says lack of liquidity in certain countries in Africa makes PPP an attractive model.
“This is an area we can really add value as we have a lot of experience playing a technical advisory role for these types of projects. Our understanding of the local market, the supply chain and how procurement is done using local and international benchmarks will also allow us to add value to projects,” Keith, a chartered surveyor and member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, said.
