Kerosi Blog

Broken promises ft Kwale County

The information highlighted in this article was sourced from Kwale County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2013-2017. We are saddened that these five-year plans are taken for granted. Otherwise how can we explain the act of developing a plan and then abandoning it after using taxpayer’s money? I am perplexed. 

Executive Summary

Broken promises in the name of flagship projects:  

• Samburu-Kinango-Kwale Tarmac Road. The road is only on paper, it never happened; residents are still struggling to cross Likoni Ferry under heavy traffic in order to get to Kwale County;
• The 5 year cumulative county budget required to finance this CIDP is projected to be Ksh 36.2 billion. 
• Resort City in Diani – This never happened as planned;
• Construction of 3 large dams
• Kwale County Government forming a mining company to undertake exploration, direct mining and and marketing;
• Debt Issuance; The county government may issue debt securities like treasury bills and bonds;
• The county government will further generate revenue from profit corporations like the Kwale County Economic Corporation and other public investment entities in form of dividends.
• Establishment of commercially viable fruit processing inside Mkongani ward;
• Silica sand and Cement processing in Msambweni;
• One County teacher training college
• Talent Academy to promote sports as a career

Background

Kwale County is one of the 6 counties in the coastal region of Kenya.

The county border the United Republic of Tanzania.

The county covers an area of 8270.2 Km², of which 62 Km2 is under water.

The area excludes the 200-miles coastal strip known as the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ).

The county is also known for its white sand beaches. These land formations is a build-up of eroded reef material whose deposits form a stretch of coastline covering approximately 250 km.

Generally the county is well drained by seven major rivers among them Ramisi, Marere, Pemba, Mkurumuji, Umba, Mwachema and the Mwachi River.

Administrative and Political Units

 Kwale County is divided into three administrative Sub-counties namely Matuga, Kinango and Msambweni. The three sub-counties are further divided into a total of nine divisions, 37 locations and 84 sub locations.

Population size and Composition

The total population of Kwale County was projected to be 713,488 persons in 2012 comprising of 346,898 males and 366,589 females. This is a 9.8 per cent increase from 649,931 in 2009. The county population growth rate is 3.1 per cent.

An analysis of the Kwale population structure reveals a remarkable youth character. The under 15 years in 2012 constituted 47.23 per cent of the total population while the proportion of the elderly (over 60 years), accounted for only 4.95 per cent in the same year.

Political Units (Constituencies and County Assembly Wards)

Kwale County has four constituencies namely Matuga, Kinango Msambweni and Lunga Lunga. The county has twenty (20) County Assembly Wards.

MINING

The county has several on-going mining activities such as exploitation of limestone at Waa and Titanium at Nguluku and Mrima by Coast Calcium Limited and Base Titanium Limited respectively.

Two other Companies namely Pacific Wildcat Resources Corps (PAW), the Canadian firm and its partner Cortec Mining Kenya (CMK) have been prospecting for niobium at Mrima Hills and have found huge deposits of a rare mineral sparking a race for exploitation.

The companies have extended operations to more regions of the county that are rich in the mineral. Similarly, Milli Glass Limited, Kenya Breweries Glass Limited and Eastern Chemicals are exploiting Silica Sand in the county.

Negative attitudes towards education by communities

 Communities in general and parents in particular have had a very low and negative attitude towards education. Their support and commitment to the education of their children has been minimal. Most parents and community members rarely get involved in school development and management activities. Parents seldom follow-up and support the progress of their children in school.

Inadequate trained teachers and instructors in technical training institutions

Some primary schools have only 2 trained teachers with 8 classes to teach. In secondary schools, where majority of the teachers, about a third, are untrained and employed on part time basis by either the school Board of Management (BOM) or the Parents Teachers Associations (PTA). It is common to find form four school levers employed as secondary school teachers. Compounding the problem of inadequate teachers in the county is the chronic problem of teacher absenteeism recorded at an alarming 30-40 percent.

Vocational institutions such as Village polytechnics equally lack qualified trained instructors. In a bid to bridge the gap, the available few instructors are forced to teach in areas in which they are not specialized – e.g. a mechanical engineering instructor teaching electrical engineering or even textile technology. The problem is mainly that of unattractive terms of service and inadequate budgetary allocation for training.

Other cultural practices that have contributed to low levels of education are traditional funerals (mahanga maitsi na mahanga maivu) and festivities (harusi, ngoma etc).

The belief that being a beach boy or beach girl is more rewarding than attending school is another root cause to student absenteeism and drop out. Many boys and girls are increasingly attracted to the quick money from tourists as beach boys and girls than concentrating on their education.

Poor Governance

Kwale County has faced governance challenges mainly arising from political differences that continually divide the masses along political lines. As a result, political fanatism compounded by a largely poor and disengaged community has culminated in a culture of “quick fixes” thus leading to erosion of the basic foundations of democratic governance. Combined with retrogressive cultural practices and illiteracy, these have compromised capabilities for decision making, implementation of development programmes and proactive civic engagement.

Resource Mobilization

The 5 year cumulative county budget required to finance this CIDP is projected to be KES 36.2 billion with KES 19.9 billion in recurrent expenditure and KES 16.3 billion in development expenditure. The budget allocation for infrastructure is put at about KES 8.1 billion, followed by Trade, Industry with proposed investment of KES 1.8 billion. Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries has a combined share of KES 1.7 billion and Education and Training KES.1.5 billion. The other sector allocations include Social and Cultural Cluster at KES 1.1 billion, Health at KES 977 million, Governance/ County Administration at KES 673million Land, Environment and Natural Resources at KES 321 million, Security at KES 122 million and cross-cutting themes budgeted at KES 70 million.

Borrowing

The government may also raise funds through borrowing to finance its operations through

1. Debt Issuance; The county government may issue debt securities like treasury bills and bonds
2. Mobilize funds from local banks and other financial institutions mainly in form of bridging finance to provide short-term finances to finance projects;

• Borrow from international agencies such as the World Bank, to undertake big capital projects such as water and sewerage, road works and housing

1. The county government will further generate revenue from profit corporations like the Kwale County Economic Corporation and other public investment entities in form of dividends.
2. The county government may also raise revenue from disposal of its assets in accordance with the Public Procurement and Disposal Act.

FLAGSHIP PROJECTS 2013-2017

• Establishment of commercially viable fruit processing inside Mkongani ward
• Fish processing in Shimoni
• Silica sand and Cement processing in Msambweni
• Industrial processing of Slates in Maji ya chumvi/Makamini
• Revival of the Kwale-Mariakani Milk scheme

Resort City in Diani

This project shall help attract high network tourist, employment creation, improved living standard, infrastructure development to make Kwale county preferred tourist destination in Africa through promotion of other forms of tourism attraction like event tourism, sports tourism and conference tourism.

Samburu-Kinango-Kwale Tarmac Road

• Will open up the South Coast tourism circuit
• Open up access to markets for County produce destined for up country markets
• Enhance passenger transport
• Huge savings on man hours otherwise lost at Likoni Ferry crossing
• Will spur growth of Kinango, Samburu, Vigurungani and other trading centers

Construction of 3 large dams (irrigation/livestock/domestic) in Kinango and Lungalunga Sub-Counties

• Will compliment the Samburu-Kinango-Kwale Tarmac Road in spurring growth
• The multi-sectoral benefits accruing have immense trigger effects
• Critical input for the establishment of a livestock disease-free zone in the area that targets the penetration of European and other major world markets

One County teacher training college

• Increased numbers of trained teachers
• Generation of County’s own role model teachers

Talent Academy a project targeting the youth aimed at:

• Promotion of sports as a career (Will include a sports stadium).
• Talent development in performing arts e.g. theatre, dance, drama, poetry, film production etc.
• change of attitude and dealing with apathy

Establishment of a Mining Company

 Transformation of the mining and extractive industry to be an enterprise undertaken by the County Government.

The current situation in which mineral wealth is extracted by foreign companies and pay royalties to the Government is not viable and is disadvantages the local earning.

For this to change, the exploration, prospecting and mining activities need to be done by the County Government.

The project will entail the Kwale County Government forming a Corporate Company that can undertake exploration and direct mining among other activities. The proposed project is to be done in five phases as follows: Phase I – Human capacity building in the mining industry and related expertise as a perpetual process Phase II – Establish County Corporate company, defining the structures and relevant partnerships Phase III- Survey and mineral resource mapping Phase IV – Prospecting of mineral quantities and business viability of selected deposits Phase V – Maiden mining activity by the County corporate company Phases 1 to 3 can go on concurrently. Impacts (Multiplier effects)

• Extraction of minerals will bring in substantial foreign exchange in the County; 
• County led mining will open up employment opportunities (direct/indirect) in various fields
• Human training and exposure in mining sector will mean an increase in education and skills
• Other infrastructure and services (transport, health, education, water, food) to be automatically upgraded/improved.
• County socio-economic status to improve and poverty eradication to be achieved.

Conclusion 

When you fail to achieve even a quarter of what you have promised, the best English work we can use to describe you is incompetent. I now leave it to readers to describe the county government. 

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