Konza woos investors with discounted lease charges

Konza Technopolis Development Authority board member Ms. Caroline Kariuki , Chairman Dr. Reuben Mutiso and Principal Secretary ICT Ministry Jerome Ochieng during the organisation's investor conference and partners forum held on Tuesday 22,2021.[James Wanzala,Standard]

Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KoTDA) has started offering incentives to investors taking up land for development.

KoTDA, the agency managing the development of Kenya’s first smart city leases land to investors at various fee grades - stand premium, a one-off payment and annual ground rent.

Stand premium has now been discounted for early takers committing to paying the fee before December 31, 2021 and ready to start construction by end of next year.

Making the announcement during an investor conference, ICT and Innovation Principal Secretary Jerome Ochieng said the government is committed to support investors to take up space at Konza Technopolis.

“Our commitment is reinforced by our actions and in the recent budget allocation for the 2021-22 year, we as the parent ministry have set aside over 70 per cent of the budget for the development of this project,” he said.

During the conference, investors who have made payments for their parcels of land were given access to the property.

They include Kenya Electricity Transmission Company, National Construction Authority, Sosian Energy, Bigen Global, Vijay Sandhu, Geonet Technologies, GS1 Kenya and Makueni Housing Co-operative.

More than 40 per cent of the 400 acres in Phase One of the project has been taken up by investors.

Treasury allocated about Sh18 billion to the Konza city project in the 2021-22 financial year.

KoTDA Chairman Reuben Mutiso said other than the development of the National Data Centre and the horizontal infrastructure, other facilities such as conferencing, security command centre and apartments are ongoing. 

[James Wanzala]