Bungoma County benchmarks Kirinyaga's industrial park model ahead of own CAIP rollout

The visit comes as Kirinyaga's CAIP nears completion, with county officials saying construction is 96 per cent complete. The project has also attracted benchmarking visits from other counties, including Kitui, seeking to draw lessons on the implementation of the national County Aggregation and Industrial Parks programme.

The Sagana CAIP forms part of the larger 252-acre Sagana Agro-Industrial City, a designated Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Ndia Constituency. The development is expected to host agro-processing industries, an Export Processing Zone (EPZ), commercial facilities and other investments aimed at promoting value addition and manufacturing.

County officials say the industrial city is projected to create more than 10,000 direct jobs and about 100,000 indirect employment opportunities once fully operational.

Governor Anne Waiguru said county-to-county learning plays an important role in strengthening devolution and accelerating economic development through the sharing of best practices.

"County-to-county learning remains one of the greatest strengths of devolution, and we are glad to share our experience in advancing agro-industrialisation and value addition," she said.

Kirinyaga Investment Development Authority (KIDA) Chairman Michael Ndwiga said only landscaping and cabro paving works remain before the project is completed.

"The project is now 96 per cent complete and what remains are the final touches, mainly landscaping and cabro works," he said.

Ndwiga said the county had already gazetted KIDA regulations, allowing the authority to begin onboarding investors ahead of the park's commissioning

"Investors are already submitting applications. They are evaluated and, once they qualify, they are issued with lease agreements to establish industries at the park," he said.

According to Ndwiga, early investor onboarding is intended to enable businesses to begin setting up operations immediately after the park is commissioned.

Bungoma County Chief Officer for Trade, Energy and Industrialization Stephen Wamalwa said the delegation selected Kirinyaga because of the progress it has made in implementing its industrial park.

"We came to Kirinyaga because they are way ahead of us in the implementation of CAIPs. We wanted to benchmark and collect lessons that will help us implement ours," Wamalwa said.

He said the visit provided practical lessons that would help improve implementation of Bungoma's own project.

"We have gained valuable insights that we can apply back home. They will help us move faster and also push our contractor to pull up his socks," he said.

Wamalwa added that although the delegation had also visited Meru and Laikipia counties, Kirinyaga's project was the most advanced.

"We have visited Meru and Laikipia too, but Kirinyaga is ahead of the rest. We appreciate the support we have received from the County Government and KIDA, and we hope to come back for more benchmarking," he said.