Uasin Gishu Governor, Jackson Mandago today met with representatives of various Business Associations during a Public Private Dialogue (PPD) workshop held at Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret town. The Seminar was organised by Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) together with the Centre for International Private Entreprise (CIPE) and participants were drawn from Kisumu, Nakuru and Uasin Gishu counties.
Uasin Gishu Governor invites Private Sector to invest in the county Uasin Gishu Governor, Jackson Mandago today met with representatives drawn from various Business Associations in the county during a Public Private Dialogue (PPD) workshop held at Sirikwa Hotel in Eldoret town. The Seminar was organised by Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) together with the Centre for International Private Entreprise (CIPE) and participants were drawn from Kisumu, Nakuru and Uasin Gishu counties. Highlighting the regions potential for economic investment, the governor invited investors to the county citing the county’s economic strengths. “Uasin Gishu is the place to invest. This county is an agriculture based economy and one of our areas of key delivery is not only to improve in agriculture but to improve productivity. We invite you as investors to invest in agro processing. We are talking about creating jobs and we want to empower farmers in this county,” he said. Mr. Mandago spoke of plans to process milk and grains locally. The county is a big producer of milk but most of it is transported to Sotik and Kiambu for processing and a number of cereal millers who buy grain from the area process it in Mombasa. “We have dairy farming and we produce the best milk around. Nestle is scouting around to see if they can get milk from here,” he said. Mr. Mandago wanted investors to look into unutilized opportunities in horticultural farming given that Eldoret is home to an international airport. Through horticultural exports, the airport could get more traffic. He said that the county had established that there is a market for baby corns and passion fruits and given the climate was looking for ways to develop these crops in the area. He also called for initiatives to make farming attractive to young people saying that one of biggest problems facing the agricultural community in the area is the advanced age of farmers. The county is also home to many of the country’s athletes and is currently looking for international partners in sports tourism. The governor told participants that due to the number of universities in the region and the student population of about 40,000 students in Eldoret town there were opportunities for wholesale and retail services. The county has managed so far to eliminate hawkers and street children from the city centre and there is a heightened sense of security in the area. Speaking on behalf of the business associations, Mr. Tobias Alando, an executive officer of KAM, called for the business representatives into county boards saying “our inclusions in the county boards will bring our contribution to the development of this county,” he said. The chairman of the Kisumu Business Coalition, Mr. Israel Angina called for more active involvement. “We want to participate in policy formulation and stakeholder groups,” he said. While a member of the Nakuru County Assembly, Mr Michael Wangombe spoke of the strides taken by the county. Nakuru has set aside 220 million for the construction of an industrial park. This is the second of 3 Public Private Dialogue workshops. A similar workshop was held in Mombasa at the beginning of the week with business associations from Mombasa and a third will be held in Nairobi for Kiambu, Nairobi and Machakos counties next week.