Settling the Dust in Nakuru

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 These are the people who finance Nakuru town but now they have been pushed aside and what was once their offices has been replaced by flowers.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.