Years back Nakuru Town was declared as the cleanest
city in Kenya and just a few years ago, it was the fastest growing towns in
Africa. Come back to today and that glory seems to be fading by the day. In the
months of June and July 2014, small scale business owners have faced the full
wrath of the Nakuru County Council which has demolished thousands of Give Kenya Hope business
structures deeming them dirty and unfit plus increasing the level of
insecurity.
Arial
view of a section of Nakuru Town/PHOTO Courtesy
The move to clean up the city and return it to its
former glory is not a bad thing but how it is done is quite wrong. Most of the
business establishments destroyed belong to the common mwananchi who lives from
hand to mouth. They are the entrepreneurs whom you will never see on television
but they are making it by raking in on the’’ twenty bobs’’ and ‘’kalucy’’.
These are the people who finance Nakuru town but now they have been pushed
aside and what was once their offices has been replaced by flowers.
So what should have been done by the County
Government? The writer of this article believes so much in communication. The
County Government should have held consultative meetings with the business
owners and told them of their plans to improve the town. Brainstorming works
wonders as the ideas comes from the people themselves. You simply don’t hold a
meeting and wake up the next day to demolish someone’s source of rent, fees and
food and yet they also pay you.
The other thing the County Government could have
done is secured land in different estates like Shabab, LangaLanga, Racecourse,
Kiti, Mawanga, Kiamunyi, London and turned them into business centers. The
municipal market in Shabab is doing quite well but unfortunately the Mama Mboga
cannot compete for space with the Auto parts seller so she sells vegetables at
the nearby roundabout or simply goes to the Kollen Stage and runs after
travellers headed home or to Kericho and Western Kenya.
Since business opportunities are not stationary, the
County Government could have come up with a strategy whereby small business
structures are built in a particular way, using certain material and painted in
a certain color. Let us borrow a leaf from Coca Cola. They support their
retailers with refrigerators and even paint their businesses for them. Can the
County Council of Nakuru do that for its clients?
Flowers will not restore the beauty of Nakuru Town
but new thinking will. The county Government should take advantage of the many
intellectuals in Nakuru courtesy of various Universities for example Egerton,
Kabarak, JKUAT and Kenyatta University. If the County can give cleaning
contracts to the local women’s groups then it can give some to the universities
therein. A university club like ENACTUS can run USAFI projects in several
estates. The communication and media students can train the parking fee
collectors on how to communicate with customers since majority are rude and
make the County lose a lot of money simply because they harass instead of
addressing clients. In a nutshell, Nakuru County is very rich.
Nakuru has a lot of potential from Ng’ambo to Nanak.
Indeed the governor of Nakuru is the best placed but there is still a long way
to go and it all starts with communication.
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