It was in yesterday's Sunday Nation that the governor of Machakos county has already been able to attract 56 billion shillings in investments two months since he took office. Which got me pondering what investments should our county governor be making to make Kiambu county an attractive destination for investments to deal with the high level of youth unemployment that we are currently experiencing. Whereas, Governor Mutua has been able to attract investments using the extremely attractive offer of free land this is an option that Kiambu doesn't have due to its small nature. In economics it is said that three factors of production are land, labor and capital and it is these three factors that theoretically attract investment's we can all agree that Kiambu was not blessed with a lot of land but in terms of labor we have a very young population that is second only to Nairobi in terms of its size and it is this population that the governor has the biggest headache with as a very large segment of this population is unemployed to underline this is the fact that in terms of unemployment according to a document released by the ministry of planning Kiambu is only second to Mandera in terms of unemployment percentage wise a very shocking statistic. In terms of capital Kiambu should be lining up fourth behind Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru as though a large segment of the population is unemployed the segment that has a purchasing power is relatively large. So what are the investment options open to the Governor of Kiambu?
THIKA TOWN:
An advantage that Kiambu has over Machakos and many other counties is that it is not starting from a vacuum there was once a vibrant industrial center that is Thika town but recently Thika is tending to become more of a residential area than an industrial town a look at the papers you will see this, this is a trend that needs to be stopped the key to giving our young men and women jobs does not lie in real estate where although the returns are very high in terms of job creation real estate is not a large scale job creator but manufacturing is. The county government can purchase land en-mass in Thika and put it under a land bank where it can then on be leased to investors who are concentrated on industrial production an example would be if the county government would buy 5000 acres and lease to each investor one acre, the 5000 investors would then start 5000 factories which in this situation each investor would employ 50 individuals, in this simplistic scenario 250,000 jobs have been created shockingly these are the same job numbers that Konza city is creating. With its proximity to Nairobi and the availability of necessary infrastructure Thika can be Kenya's largest manufacturing centre
THE PEOPLE:
Kiambu county has been blessed with a large population and in my opinion this is the greatest asset that we have as a county not only do we have a large population but we have a large population with an extremely high entrepreneurial spirit and it is in this that most of our investments must go by addressing the issues that businessmen and women face when transacting business and mostly on the issue on the high cost of credit I am not talking of the current scenario where the actual lending is done by the government itself I would suggest setting up a fund where the county government and businesses would contribute funds to guarantee loans, for businesses the amount that will be lent can be marked as per the contribution that the business has contributed.
Next week part 2 of this analysis.
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waiting for part 2...
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