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Naivasha industries plan risks failure on lack of power, roads
Then President Uhuru Kenyatta (centre) launches a water project at the Naivasha industrial park in Maai Mahiu in July last year.
Plans to set up an industrial park in Naivasha risk remaining a pipe dream unless the government carries out major investments in infrastructure at the 1,000 acre property urgently.
This was revealed during a fact-finding tour by members of the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Trade, Industrialisation and Cooperatives, who were told by traders that lack of roads and electricity at the site was hindering investment.
The area, which the national government has designated as a special economic zone (SEZ), has so far attracted five investors, who own at least 500 acres.
“We don’t have a single cent set aside by the national government for construction of roads inside the park, which is quite unfortunate,” said the committee’s chairman, Embakasi North MP James Gakuya.
He said a water and sanitation system was still a necessity, as was a perimeter wall to secure the area that has been earmarked for investments running into billions of shillings.
He said Sh4.5 billion was needed to develop critical infrastructure, even as he hailed the willingness shown by foreign investors to set up shop at the facility.
One of the investors told the legislators, during a question-and-answer session, that lack of electricity and a poor road network had affected their completion timelines.
Some of the companies setting base at the Maai Mahiu-based park are Turkish SEZ Limited that is investing in a $760 million (Sh91 billion) factory.
The committee’s vice-chair, Aldai MP Marriane Kitany, said the Naivasha industrial park and similar investments across the country will create jobs for thousands of Kenyans.
“The Naivasha SEZ can offer employment opportunities for more than 10,000 young people which, as a country, we have been pushing for,” she said.
She observed that the activities at the Inland Container Depot (ICD) had been slowed down, voicing the need of speeding up the completion of the SEZ projects.
“The completion of the earmarked projects, which largely involve manufacturing, will be a big boost especially for the inland container depot due to the proximity of the factories,” pointed out Ms Kitany.
She called for the prudent use of the cash allocated for the completion of infrastructure projects within the SEZs and lowering of the cost of doing business to attract more local and foreign investors.