SPEECH BY H.E GOVERNOR DR. ALFRED N. MUTUA EBS ON LAUNCH OF THE MACHAKOS INVESTORS CONFERENCE Ladies and Gentlemen, In the plains of undulating hills and savanah grasslands, a zulu king by the name shaka zulu reigned from the year 1788 to the year 1828. Shaka was a mighty warrior but was also an interesting character. When told that foreigners wanted to see him, he did not dismiss them but looked at them as people who would contribute to the plight of his subjects. He told his prime minister that, and I quote, If a leopard is given wings to fly, he will be foolish to refuse them, Shaka spoke like an investor. Coming home, a great trader in the name of Chief Kivoi was born not far from here - in a land of beautiful anthills rising from sage and elephant grass. He was a man who walked hundreds of kilometers to take his goods to buyers. He would travel from where we are today, to as far as Mombasa or Tanga, distances of between 500 - 700 kilometers for trade. Today, the name Chief Kivoi is synonymous with long distance travel for business: As a result, his descendants, the kamba people of Machakos County, do a lot of walking and no place is far to them. Never make the mistake of asking a Kamba how far a place is. He or she will reply, No Vaa. - it is just here, around the corner, not far. In reality, it may be around 500 kilometers away. No distance is very far for business. No vaa. We blame it on the exploits of our Chief Kivoi. Ladies and Gentlemen, Today, we are revolutionalizing the way business is done in Kenya and the way development and wealth creation can be speeded up. I welcome you to join us in this great adventure. Time has come for all of us to walk together, and like the elegant and powerful leopard, to put on wings and extend our horizons. We invite you to come and make money - tones of money by investing in Machakos, the home of a people who will walk hundreds of miles to make sure you succeed. The entire government of machakos is united in one course - to make Machakos the Premier Investment Zone, not only in kenya but the region. Both arms of Machakos Government, the executive and the legislature are with you here today. My cabinet is here. The Hon. Speaker of the County Assembly and all 40 Hon. members are also here. Our voices in the country, our members of National Assembly, parliament are also here, and it is on all their behalf, I say karibu to Masaku - Machakos. Winston churchill once said that you shape the environment and the environment shapes you… Machakos has decided to shape the best business environment for investors because we want you to come and join us in this vital journey of fighting poverty, creating employment, bringing back hope to our people and creating the model county in Kenya. We have vowed that in Machakos, we will facilitate business, not frustrate business. With us, you can be assured that we will go out of our way to make it possible for you to make money. Let me take a few minutes to enumarate some of the ideas and plans we have. Later on today, after the first break, we will hold a more comprehensive session to share with you the areas that you can invest in and the various opportunities in Machakos. In the movie City Hall, the character played by Al Pacino proclaims that All good things flow from the city. We plan to create a new city of Machakos on part of a 4000 Piece of land. The city will inject new energy to Machakos and provide opportunity for you to invest in. We will have an ultra-modern Central Business District (CBD), a well -thought and co-ordinated transport system and areas to support various industries. For example, we have a university and medical zone because we want to have the best learning institutions and referral research hospitals and medical centers that are the best in the continent. We will have zones for industrial parks, for ICT centers and even a financial center. We have set aside 50 acres in our plans for a film city - well, more of an entertainment city. We plan to create our own Machahood where you will find film and music studios and land for action film productions. We will also have a sports city with stadiums, playgrounds and a track for car racing - yes, we want Formula One to be held right here in Machakos. The town of Machakos is barely 60 kilometers from Nairobi and 15 kilometers from the upcoming project of Konza City - the ICT Park. Currently, there is a massive shortage of housing projects of all calibers. We will be the bedroom, well, rather the dormitory of Nairobi and Konza. We will also house our visitors in a zone of hotels and conference centers where one can walk around the famous Maruba dam or play golf under the real African sun. Sun is a resource we intend to harness. The city will require all buildings to be smart solar buildings with solar panels on the roof. We will also provide areas for solar farms and wind farms. Around the county, we have identified more than 1, 000 acres of land for solar farms and areas for wind turbines so as to generate over 500 mega-watts of power to suppliment the national grid for our development needs. When I was in high school, back in the early 80s, we used to sing a revolutionary song called cho choroza. One of the lines in the song said one must work to eat. Agriculture and investment in food production and marketing has also been factored in our plans. From fruits, coffee and meat factories to flower farms, Machakos is the right and ready place to be. To get our products to markets, we plan to construct a new international airport, just near Konza on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. This is in addition to airstrips in every constituency that we have already factored in our budgetary allocations. I now want to talk about free land for investment in Machakos. But before I do that, let us walk down history lane. In the turn of the last century, the Wright Brothers decided to build a machine that could fly. I can imagine what their neighbours said, those sons of write, have lost their marbles. I can just hear others proclaiming, If God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings. Man is made for walking, not crazy ideas. Today, thanks to the crazy Wright Brothers, some of our visitors who are here from South Korea, China, Malasyia, other Asian nations, Uganda, Tanzania, Europe, and the Americans, flew to kenya and are here in Maanzoni, Machakos. Like the Wright Brothers, we will continue to nurture innovation and new ways of doing things. We are open to so called crazy ideas-indeed, my minister of energy has told me we want investors to turn our garbage into electricity and my minister of water whispered that we can recycle water - even sewarage water! We have a plan to repair our roads through new road construction methods and we welcome investors to Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) ventures for road and a railway line. As an incentive to our investors, Machakos County will provide land, free of charge, to investors who are ready to start work. To us, land is a resource and all corners of our county have land we can provide for schools, housing estates, factories, hospitals and all forms of investement, huge or small. To this end, we plan to sign memorundums of understanding (MOUs) with potential investors who are ready to embrace the spirit of Machakos. If after today, you are ready, please see my minister of Trade, Industrialization Economic Planning, Dr. Sunil Dhal or any of my ministers or memebers of County Assembly. We have a dedicated office of lawyers, who can facilitate you so that tomorrow afternoon, we can sign with you. Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken for long, and as you know business is not about talking, it is about converting ideas to money in a condusive environment. We will create an enabling environment for you. I abhor corruption and I promise you for the first time in kenya you will be pleasantly surprised to work with a county where there will be no kickbacks asked. We will in addition provide one stop investment centers and will do all the walking for you, to make sure you get all documents in place. We have a massive program for security and other enabling programs to make it easier for you to work and live in Machakos. We have investors already working in Machakos. We will ensure we fix roads and cut out the bureaucracries that frustrate them. My friends, Around the same time that Shaka Zulu was talking about leopards being given wings to fly, another hero, a man called Masaku was leading his people on this region. Visitors came to his region and he welcomed them and started the tradition of working with others for the benefit of his people. The spirit of masaku lives in all of us today in the region named after him. He envisioned his people rising up and walking with pride in wealth and prosperity. This dream of Masaku or Machakos, is what we are embracing and achieving today. And I promise you by Gods grace we will get there. We will succeed because failure is not an option and like US President Barack Obama, once said, Because, yes we can. I now declare the first Machakos Investors Conference officially opened. Thank you. God bless you, and again welcome to MASAKU, the premier zone for investment in Kenya. H.E. DR. ALFRED N. MUTUA, EBS GOVERNOR 16th May, 2013
Posted on: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 13:33:54 +0000
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