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October 9, 2018 www.mygov.go.ke NEWSFOCUS | 13 County pledges land to build 2,000 housing units Taita-Taveta County Lands executive says the process of identifying suitable land for the Big Four project is under way housing project. Taita-Taveta is set to get 2,000 units to improve the housing conditions of the residents out of the 1 million housing units the government intends to construct by 2022. Ms. Mnyambo however noted it was still too early to give specifics on the size of land required but hinted that it would not be located in one place. “The 2,000 units might require land parcels in more than one area. We are in the process of identifying land where the units will be built,” she said. In the Agenda 4 blueprint, BY WAGEMA MWANGI KNA-VOI T aita-Taveta County is set to donate land to the national government for construction of 2,000 lowcost housing units as part of inter-governmental partnership in the implementation of the Big 4 agenda. County Executive Member for Lands in Taita-Taveta County Clarise Mnyambo said the county had started the process of identifying suitable land for the project. During his last visit to the region on this October 1 to launch CT Scan Imaging Centre at the Moi County Referral Hospital in Voi town, Deputy President William Ruto had requested the county government to allocate land for the the government plans to build one million homes comprising 800,000 affordable units and an extra 200,000 social units. The National Treasury will directly inject 10 per cent of the budget into the project with private funding and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) contributing 60 percent and 30 percent respectively. County housing officer Mr. John Kariuki said the county has a shortage of houses and the project would take pressure from the already existing units in the region. “We currently have around 680 units and we need over double that number to take pressure off the existing houses,” he said. Taita-Taveta has seven categories of housing. The largest category is under government group house pool of 242 units. Due to the pressing financial needs, many communities have abandoned the indigenous drought-resistant crops such as cassava and millet due to misconceived attitudes towards such crops - Dr. Maina Dr Maina said another serious challenge was poor and inadequate storage facilities. Agricultural researchers at KARLO and Egerton University have confirmed that a great amount of food harvested in the country goes to waste due to poor storage. KARLO reported that by 2001, the country was losing up to nine million bags of grain per year as a result of poor storage. Recently, there were unconfirmed reports that some of the maize at the NCPB silos has turned yellow, due to high moisture content. That means they are also infested with aflatoxin which is attracted by moisture in cereals. Institutional houses for police service are 138 while Ministry of Health has 163 units. Prisons department and department of agriculture have 30 units and 46 units respectively. Meteorological has 11while customs department holds 50 housing units. Mr. Kariuki said the 2,000unit project would greatly supplement the government houses already in the region. However, as plans picked up for the new project, the fate of two multi-million housing projects that have remained stalled for over 15 years remains unknown. The Mwakingali Voi Government Housing Pool project and a similar project at Kariokor area are incomplete despite the government spending over Sh500 million from the 1990s to date on the construction of the houses. The Voi Pool Houses at Mwakingali is 70 per cent complete with the only issues pending being construction of drainage and installation of electricity. However, there are fears that more works are required to be done to restore the buildings to their original status. The project has 11 bungalows each with a servant quarters; 36 units of three-bedroomed houses and 60 two-bedroom houses. The Kariokor housing project was abandoned after wrangles over land ownership 2000 Housing units TaitaTaveta is set to get to improve the housing conditions of residents Public works officials during a tour of the incomplete Voi Government Pool Housing Project in Mwakingali. The government has spent over Sh500 million from the 1990s to date on the construction of the houses. erupted between the community and the government. In a July directive to all ministerial accounting officers, President Kenyatta ordered that no new project should be launched until the existing ones were completed. This was to avoid wastage 800,000 Affordable units and an extra 200,000 social units the government plans to build under Agenda 4 of resources and put a stop to ministries abandoning old projects and starting new ones. The only projects exempted from the presidential directive will be the ones directly related to the Big 4 Agenda. When contacted, the county quantity surveyor Mr. James Kamau said if well-funded, the contractor could be able to complete the project by June 2019. He added that insufficient funding was the biggest challenge to the completion of the project. “The works have slowed down due to insufficient funding. If we can be well-funded, this project could be done by mid-2019,” said Mr. Kamau. In other areas, the government has identified several areas where the housing project would be implemented. In Kisumu, 1,000-acres of land will be used while Eldoret and Nakuru will each give 800 acres. Nairobi will be the biggest contributor with 3,000 acres while Mombasa County will give 1,200 acres. She said in the past, there was over-reliance on food aid or foreign relief food and other forms of aid, which created a dependencesyndrome in some communities. This resulted in some areas becoming complacent and lethargic about looking for a permanent solution to their food problems. She said that poor economic planning on the part of the government because a lot of emphasizes was put on other development projects at the expense of agriculture and food production. An example is the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) which was mainly used for sand and mortar, even in areas where children slept hungry. She added that the other major challenge was exhaustion of land due to overuse and the aid burden. Many developing countries depend on loans from rich countries such as the USA and Western Europe, as well as from donors and lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. This debt burden hampers the efforts of governments to invest in agricultural research and infrastructure as the loans, which have very high interest rates, have to be repaid. However, she said despite the challenges, the country has carried out extensive research, which has led to the production of hybrid maize, such as katumani which grows in drier areas of the country.

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