Counties in Western Kenya have been challenged to formulate strategies to grow their contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and spur economic growth.
These sentiments were expressed during this year’s Western Jurists Forum (WJF) Annual Gala event which brought together prominent professionals from Kenya’s western region.
Last year, the WJF was formed with the aim of uniting legal practitioners from Western Kenya with a view to exploiting the region’s untapped potential.
Speaking at the second annual WJF dinner dance, Metropol Corporation Group Managing Director, Sam Omukoko said western region still has lots of strides to make to catch up with other counties in terms of contribution to Kenya’s gross domestic product.
“For a long time, we have been made to believe that 60 percent of the Kenyan wealth is generated in Nairobi. KNBS did a survey and produced county GDP reports and Nairobi apparently contributes only 21.7%. I did a comparison, the totals of western counties which are 5 and the totals of Nyanza counties which are 6 and the total GDP contribution for western counties is 9.5% and that of Nyanza is 10.2 % so Nyanza has a higher contribution than western.” Said Omukoko
He went ahead and said that “when it comes to growth rate, you begin to see clear differences that a country like Nyandarua or Laikipia is growing four times faster than a county like Kakamega and Bungoma.”
According to Mr. Omukoko, the root cause of the slow growth in the Western region of the country can partly be traced to how land in the region has been managed over the years.
This is especially considering that agriculture – and more specifically, sugarcane farming, has been the region’s economic mainstay.
“If you look at Western, land has become a problem it has been subdivided and subdivided. Every time a son has to get a portion and when they have their children, they’ve got to get their portion until you only get a portion where you can put up a house which means that agriculture is basically pushed to a subsistence level.”
Also in attendance, was Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), who called for more inclusion of the Western region in national leadership if development is to be realised across the board.
“I have no criticism against the government and Uhuru Kenyatta is a good friend of mine but this is the only time where you can actually appoint all parastatals without a single Luhya and there is no political cost to it because there is nobody who is shocked.” Siad Kituyi.
“There is nobody to express surprise. Our exclusion is totally disproportionate to our numbers but we have no gravitas because we have not described ourselves to matter.” He added.
Judge of the Supreme Court Dr. Smokin Wanjala, on the other hand, challenged WJF to champion mobilisation of more financial resources in order to spur development in the western region.
“We need to continue the conversation on how we can harness our intellectual resources for the transformation of our people. I want us to establish a fund into which can be infused capital from development-oriented institutions so that from that fund we can empower our young people economically in a variety of ways.” Said Wanjala.
This year’s annual WJF was held against the backdrop of the ongoing national dialogue that is being steered through the recently unveiled Building Bridges Initiative report that is championing for more inclusivity and sharing of economic prosperity in the country.
