Bill to rank towns based on services

Towns will be classified into five categories if a proposed Bill to be tabled in Parliament sails through after the House reopens.

The Urban Areas and Cities (Amendment) Act, 2014 is also seeking to have the borders defining urban areas removed.

The Bill proposes that an area with more than 1.5 million people be classified as metropolitan.

The Bill is sponsored by Malindi MP Dan Kazungu, who says urban areas in need to be classified into five in order to ensure efficiency in service delivery and tax collection.

“We should have a metropolitan area, a city, a town, a municipality and a market centre. Each of these will be defined by a certain set of factors,” he says.

According to the Bill, a metropolitan, the highest level, will be an integrated international investment and business hub. It will also have advance services in communication, education, industry, recreation, health, hospitality, security, finance and disaster management.

The infrastructure of a metropolitan will also be of high standards. The Bill defines “metropolitan area” as one or more city or urban areas as well as satellite cities and intervening rural areas that are socio-economically tied to the core, typically measured by commuting patterns.

“The President may, on the advice of the Senate and enactment of the relevant legislation by the National Assembly, confer the status of a metropolitan area to an urban area which has the characteristics of a metropolitan area by grant of a charter in the prescribed form,” reads the Bill.

According to Mr Kazungu, the passage of the bill will spur competition among different areas seeking to advance in status.

“Governors will be creative, competition will be spurred, because everyone will want privileges of a town or a city accorded to them,” he says, adding that this will allow business with international donor agencies and strategic investors.