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Kenya: Ministry Teams Up With Private Sector to Inject New Life Into White Elephants
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The Nation (Nairobi)
12 March 2008
Posted to the web 12 March 2008
Sam Kiplagat
Nairobi
A number of government projects under the Regional Development Authorities are up for grabs by the private sector.
The Government has signed an agreement to work with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance with the aim of reviving some of its stalled projects across the country.
Regional Development permanent secretary David Stower says the private sector could support projects under the Regional Development Authorities to achieve full potential.
Millions of shillings were pumped into some of these projects in its initial years but stalled before or after take-off.
According to Mr Stower, the Government is inviting the private sector to take over such projects.
Political interference has been blamed for poor progress of the projects. The Moi and Kibaki regimes have in the past used managerial positions in the regional development authorities to reward cronies. In agreement with this, Mr Stower said issues such as ownership of public assets and sharing of income have not been clearly spelt out.
Benefit communities
"To address this problem, a policy and legal framework on public private partnerships is being developed by the Ministry of Finance to ensure that such partnerships are beneficial to communities, the regions and the nation as a whole," he assured.
A good example is the Tana-Delta Rice Irrigation Project under the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority.
The project can produce more than 2,500 tonnes of rice per day but it has not been operating.
Its set up was aimed at opening up the delta area to farming.
Tarda acquired 28,000 hectares of the Eastern Delta area of the Tana River and earmarked the first 16,000 hactares for commercial rice farming.
Commercial farming
Studies indicated that the area was viable for other commercial crops such as cotton, sugar, palm oil, bananas or settlement programme under smallholder models of commercial farming.
The authority aimed to earn foreign exchange through sales of commodities as well as creating employment and incomes for the local communities.
Due to the project, 1,000 households have access to irrigation water.
According to Mr Stower, the Government invested Sh4 billion in project but the El-nino rains of 1997 disrupted and since then, it has never picked up.
"To this end, the private sector will find it much easier to invest together with the public sector which will go along way in achieving the Vision 2030 that aims to make Kenya a globally competitive and prosperous nation with high quality of life in the next 25 years," Mr Stower said.
Emali Livestock Multiplication Project is among those that require private sector support.
Through the project, the Government was keen to promote the livestock industry on the basin.
Last week, the PS launched a Ministerial Stakeholders forum that brings together members of the private sector and development authorities.
Mr Stower said the private sector will also partner with the Government and invest in hydro-power generation and construction multi-purpose dams along Tana and Athi rivers.
He added that the Tourism Trust Fund had finalised a master plan for the activity on the Tana Basin.
At the Lake Basin Development Authority, Mr Stower said investment in tourism has been under utilised.
He noted that the region also had huge potential for agro-processing in rice, sunflower, groundnuts and sim sim. The region is endowed with abundant water from Lake Victoria and its rivers.
Resource in the area provide opportunities for investment in hydro-power, irrigation and tourism development.
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"The region also has rich arable land suitable for commercial agriculture especially in horticulture, sugar cane, rice, wheat, tea and coffee. The land is additionally suitable for livestock production. Investment in these activities provides opportunities for the establishment of agro and livestock based industries."
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