Narok-Kajiado counties launch economic bloc strategic plan

Narok, Friday April 28, 2023

K.N.A By Ann Salaton

Narok Kajiado Economic Bloc (NAKAEB) has launched a strategic plan for 2022-2026 to spur development in the region.

The launch held at the Maasai Mara National Reserve was led by NAKAEB Chairman, Kajiado Governor Joseph Ole Lenku and attended by Narok Governor Patrick Ntutu, a number of members of parliament, Members of County Assembly among other dignitaries.

Governor Ole Lenku said the economic bloc is part of the many fruits of devolution saying despite the teething problems, devolution was yielding huge fruits for the country.

He observed that though the Maa dominated counties are blessed with many resources, the community has remained behind economically as they contribute very little to the country’s economy.

“Maasai Mara is the talk of the world, our culture is the best, we are number one in solar energy, we are number one in limestone production, but we are the poorest,” he observed.

The governor, who is in his second term, reiterated the main aim of coming together being to share ideas and common resources so as to boost the livelihood of the people.

“The Maa nation is not contributing meaningfully to the country’s economy because of rejecting education. What if we say, our major problem is education and then we major in education?

Or we decide to say, our major common problem is animal fodder, because our livestock are dying of drought. Then we will put all our energy in dealing with this challenge,” he said.

For instance, he said, in Kajiado county, they are considering global markets because they want to phase out the zebu cows and deal with faster maturing cows. This has made the county put a lot of energy into improving the livestock breed.

“We can share such ideas with the livestock officers from Narok County so that the two counties can be able to develop and contribute meaningfully to the country’s economy’, he added.

Ole Lenku challenged the NAKAEB secretariat to be specific when implementing issues so as to deal with one problem at a time.

Governor Ntutu said the strategic plan will strengthen the cooperation by outlining the laws that will guide the counties.

He committed to work with the county government of Kajiado to ensure that the two economies are strengthened.

The elephant in the room, he said, is the resources because without resources, it will be difficult to implement the document.

He hence challenged the Members of County Assembly from the two counties to pass legislation that will enable resource allocation for the strategic plan.

“We are good at writing strategic plans but implementing them is very difficult. This time round, we do not want to put this strategic plan on the shelves, we want to implement it to the letter,” said governor Ntutu.

Narok County Women Representative Rebecca Tonkei said there is a need to bring educationists on board to see how they can improve education as the best way to improve people’s livelihood is impacting them with knowledge.

Emurua Dikirr MP Johanna Ngeno stressed the need to look for alternative means of getting energy and called on the Maa people to adopt and use biogas as they keep many animals.

The five key result areas in the strategic plan include: Institutional capacity building, stakeholder engagements & partnerships, legal framework, research & innovation and resource mobilization.

Courtesy K.N.A