Land key to Coast economy, says Raila

Land speculators are the biggest stumbling block to unlocking the untapped economic potential of the Coast.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday told the first-ever Coast investment conference in Mombasa that the huge tracts of idle land should be given out to investors to spur economic growth in the region.

Change attitude

But he also told wananchi at the Coast to change their attitude towards foreign investors to pave the way for the tapping of local resources.

The two-day conference at the Travellers Beach Hotel was organised by Coast professionals under the banner of the Coast People’s Forum, the Coast Parliamentary Group and the Kenya Investment Authority to find ways of unlocking the investment potential in the region.

The other challenges, according to conference chairman Fred Mweni, were poor infrastructure, the poor state of ferries which constantly break down, thereby hampering the free movement of goods and people, which in turn adversely affects service delivery.

Mr Mweni said that despite the huge potential which includes marine, agriculture, minerals, livestock and tourism resources, the region contributed only Sh5 billion of the GDP against a potential of more than Sh60 billion.

The main aim of the conference was to bring together existing and potential investors, local leaders and local communities to explore various investment opportunities in the area.

The talks are expected to come up with a plan of action which the government will implement to realise Vision 2030.

Mr Odinga was confident that the proposed constitution would empower regions that had in the past been marginalised by previous governments and stir their rapid development.

Unlike other countries where land for foreign investment was given for free by the government, Mr Odinga said that in Kenya a few individuals owned huge chunks of land and this undermined efforts to attract investors.

“An investor is only interested in putting up a project; get money out of it and most of them are not ready to spend millions of shillings to buy land before setting up their businesses.”

In Brazil and Tanzania, he said, beach plots were given free of charge to investors, yet in Kenya the cost of a similar plot was prohibitive.

“We have to free the land if we want to attract more investment,” he said.

The Prime Minister also said that many investment projects had failed to take off due to politicisation by local leaders.

He was reacting to remarks by the chairman of the Coast Parliamentary Group, Mr Ben Gunda, who had earlier said that the government should not lease out land to foreigners to grow food but instead empower local people to produce and export the food.

Last year, the Qatari Government had asked Kenya to give it 100,000 acres of prime land in the River Tana delta. Qatar would have used the land to grow food for its citizens. In return, it was to have helped Kenya build a second seaport at Lamu and expand its railway network to Ethiopia.

The deal was shelved after a public uproar.

On Monday, Mr Odinga said that although Kenya had the land, it lacked the capital to develop it.

“If an investor or foreign country wants to get land and invest in agriculture they should not be denied because at the end of the day it is the local people who will benefit,” he said.

While the Coast region was rich in human, natural and historical resources, the PM said it was shocking that majority of the people remained poor.

East African Cooperation minister Amerson Kingi asked investors to think beyond the Coast and take advantage of the various protocols that will open up the East African region to development.

He said the countries in the region had finalised the various protocols among them the customs union and the common market that would make movement of people, goods and services much easier across the five countries.