The County Government of Uasin Gishu has committed to providing at least 135 acres of land that will be used in the setting of an industrial park.
Governor Jonathan Bii Chelilim made the commitment during a roundtable meeting with members of the business community in the county.
The county has further pledged to allocate Ksh200 million towards the facilitation of the project.
Already the national government has allocated Ksh100 million for the industrial park project across the country in a renewed effort to encourage the setting up of industries.
“We already have Ksh4.7 billion for the 2023/2024 financial year for the setting up of county industrial parks and governors have agreed to top up the amount,” said State Department of Industrialization Principal Secretary Dr Juma Mukhwana.
Several other investors have also pledged to support the project.
According to the PS, Equity Bank has provided Ksh250 billion alongside Ksh2.5 billion from the European Union.
“The whole idea is we want to encourage investors to invest in small manufacturing like tea, coffee, macadamia milk etc.,” said Dr Mukhwana.
“We’re now in our next phase of industrialization. In the first phase, we were building industries but we’re now looking at small-scale industries and our role is to provide a conducive environment,” he added.
Import levy
Among the ways, the government seeks to provide a conducive environment for local manufacturers is the introduction of an import levy for products that can be manufactured locally.
The Industrialization PS says the levy has since been approved by the Cabinet.
“If you import something that you can make here, we’re going to tax it so that we encourage people to manufacture locally and create jobs for young people,” he said.
Dr Mukhwana admitted that manufacturing was expensive but said the government was looking at ways to make it easy for investors to set up industries.
Among the ways is for the government to provide land for the investor and build shades.
“An investor will only be required to find the machinery and come to install it in an already build shade,” said the PS.
The government’s plan is to gazette all 47 industrial parks as Export Economic Zone (EPZ) that will allow investors to get incentives on tax payments and electricity costs among others.
“We’re ready to welcome all investors. We have sufficient manpower and resources for as many as they can come,” said Governor Chelilim.
