Kakamega County will be your next new city in Kenya following intense plans underway to ensure it attains the ambitious city status in the near future.
The initial plan was to have the county become a fully-fledged city before the end of 2022 which didn’t happen.
The plan is to ensure effective and sustainable security structures are put in place to enable the county to heighten its appeal to foreign investors thus enabling its expansion.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Lands, Housing, Urban Areas and Physical Planning held a meeting with the AD HOC Committee on the conferment of Kakamega Municipality to city status at Golf Hotel Kakamega on Friday where John Meso was elected as the Committee's Chairperson.
The Committee‘s major mandate will be to oversee the transition of the county to city status in addition to overseeing the conferment of Sub-County Headquarters to Town status.
In the process, it shall also oversee Butere, Malava and Matunda towns conferred Municipality status.
The in-charge County Executive Committee Member Madam Peninnah Mukabane expressed her commitment to ensuring Kakamega Municipality meets all the requirements for elevation to a City.
The county Chief Officer for Urban Areas and Physical Planning Patrick Butichi on his part informed the committee that all relevant stakeholders will be involved to fast-track the process whose results shall lead to controlled urbanization that supports both economic and social development.
The project is expected to end after 20 weeks of intensive field exercise and consultations.
The Director for Physical Planning Stephen Chune highlighted the conferment application process with the members outlining the integral steps the County had to make in order to achieve the County to City and adjacent Sub-Counties to town status.
The Urban and Cities Act requires that a municipality has a population of at least 250,000, alongside other social amenities, to qualify for city status.
The county faces an array of issues due to the changing nature of peace and security in its landscape and an influx of displaced people from neighbouring border counties due to issues such as unemployment, poverty and violent extremism.
According to Elphas Were, Executive Director at KEYNET, Kakamega’s high youth unemployment levels have also contributed to the county’s high recruitment levels into al-Shabaab as well as gang violence.
All these issues must be proven to have been effective to be addressed before it is considered for City status.