10 Mt Kenya governors to revive economy of region with Sh100 billion blueprint

Scouts Movement chief Jacob Kaimenyi (right), installs the Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga as patron during a celebration of the founder Baden Powell in Nyeri County. [Kibata Kihu, Standard]

Mt Kenya region is on the cusp of an economic revival if an ambitious plan by governors from 10 counties in the region to form an economic bloc takes off.

Under the Sh100 billion blueprint, the county governors hope to spearhead an economic transformation of the region by leveraging agriculture and agri-business, industrialisation, healthcare, tourism, water and resource management, infrastructure and ICT.

The blueprint is hinged on industrialisation of agriculture, export diversification and market development, urbanisation and transformation and up-scaling of tourism.

Consultative meeting

The proposal for a closer engagement between the counties was floated two years ago when former Laikipia Governor Joshua Irungu held a consultative meeting attended by his colleagues from Embu, Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Laikipia, Meru, Murang’a, Nakuru, Nyandarua, Nyeri and Tharaka Nithi counties.

The meeting resulted in the formation of Mount Kenya and Aberdares counties Economic Bloc.

The flagship programme is the revival of the old metre gauge railway from Nairobi to Nanyuki which has been dormant since the 1990s.

In keeping that dream alive, last year, the late Nyeri Governor Dr Wahome Gakuru and his Kiambu counterpart Ferdinand Waititu and former Nairobi Deputy Governor Polycarp Igathe were hosted by Laikipia’s Ndiritu Muriithi at Maiyan in Nanyuki, where they pledged to contribute Sh100 million to start the Sh25 billion railway revival project.

Among the issues that were agreed in the meeting was the need for a new impetus for the region to exploit its full potential and to empower itself economically.

Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria told Sunday Standard that the project was alive and viable and needed the county governments to work together.

“We are committed together as regional counties to leverage on our comparative advantages and economies of scale,” said the governor.

There are concerns that the plans are floundering especially since the time frame for the revival of the railway -- six months -- is almost elapsing.

“We are still in the process. We are talking and strategising in private because we want to keep it apart from politics,” Wa Iria said.

Yesterday, Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga said they had already put in place a secretariat and were looking for premises.

“We have held one meeting and are planning to hold another soon. Right now, we are in the process of creating our county budgets and the Sh100 million to revive the railway has already been allocated,” Kahiga said.

According to Kahiga, the economic bloc will be the best way that the counties can tackle their collective problems and it will be easier to seek funding.

“We have the same problems and from this level of cooperation we can be able to solve the problems and prevent spill overs,” he said.

But reviving that railway is just the tip of the iceberg when it came to resuscitating the economy of Mt Kenya.

The plan is to re-engineer the economy from being fully dependent on agriculture to a three engine economy that will be powered by agriculture, industry and services.

Agriculture, once the mainstay of the region, but its economic contribution is declining.

 “The fact that agriculture’s economic contribution is declining does not mean that it should be neglected. On the contrary, the obvious place for the region to begin is by industrializing agriculture,” the plan reads.

To transform the fortunes of their residents, the governors are banking on value addition of agricultural produce, export diversification and market development, urbanisation and transformation and up-scaling of tourism.

New frontiers

These new frontiers of growth, the blueprint says, will shepherd the counties to being economically self-sufficient in the coming years.

Some plans, however, will take time before they are actualised due to the sheer grandeur and the huge financial investment required.

On average, county governments receive about Sh6 billion from the exchequer, most of which goes to paying salaries and funding infrastructure projects.

But some of the grand projects will rely heavily on the support that the counties will get from the national government.

“This is a major economic development agenda that requires the input of various stakeholders key among them National and County Governments, Private Investors and Development Agencies. The initiatives are estimated to cost approximately Sh10 Billion per county,” the plan states.