There is one Governor that is ambitious, very very ambitions and truly over ambitious. Dr. Alfred Mutua has the ambition of transforming Machakos into a city only seen in Hollywood movies. Watching this video leaves you with nothing but ewe, wonder and excitement with great hopes for Machakos. To the investors, Dr. Mutua has promised that the city will be functional in 18 months from today and within four years, MachaCity will be boasting of skyscrapers, fully functioning entertainment industry, and a Formula 1 Racetrack.
Planned MachaCity
Does Dr. Mutua have the funds to materialize his ambitious dreams? NO, but he has put his hopes on investors. The incentives to the investors is “free land”, and the freedom for the investors to recoup their investment within a period of time.
It is the land issue that has made some question Dr. Mutua’s genuineness. Some opponents to the projects are pointing out that Dr. Mutua could be promising outsiders community land, and such rhetoric are what led to most of Machakos residents reject the new constitution and largely contributed to the post election violence in 2007/2008 in RV. Others say that Machakos does not need projects like the Machahood, Formular 1, and the smart city projects but instead the governor should concentrate in building roads, employing teachers, and empowering farmers to be more productive.
But as a development minded and equally ambitious individual I would like to lay the politics aside and loud Dr. Mutua’s sweet dreams. I must confess that Dr. Mutua’s video linked to above has moved me with emotions of excitement. Leaders with such dreams, even if the dreams won’t mature due to one reason or another, mostly due to political reasons, deserve to be elected, supported and encouraged to prosper.
Dr. Mutua has already started programs of empowering farmers. He has bought a number of tractors that will help in ploughing the land and has set in place projects to help farmers manage their farming activities. Dr. Mutua has flagged off a program for the county’s education, has signed investment agreements worth over Kshs 2 trillion in total (more than the country’s annual budget), and has set in place a number of measures to fight poverty in the county.
Big projects are also underway, some to be completed before 12th December 2013 (about a month a way from today). About this time next year the initial phase of the MachaCity shall be more than 50% through, and by the time of the next generation election the most beautiful city in the country could be MachaCity.
Arguing from the projects already underway, policies set to tackle both small and big problems facing Machakos, and the interest of many investors to give money to Machakos, I can safely bet that these are not white elephants in the making. For some reason whenever Dr. Alfred Mutua talks he sounds promising. His timelines are reasonable. As opposed to timelines surrounding the promised made by the President such as the laptop for class one kids and cashless Kenya by April 2014, Dr. Mutua has set the ball rolling at a pace that we can believe him and his timelines. Dr. Mutua seems not to be playing politics to be the next Machakos Governor but if he is playing politics at all, it could be he wants to be the country’s president by 2017/2018.
And if being the country’s president by 2017/2018 is his ambition, then the only way to be sure of landslide victory is to ensure that every project promised for Machakos county is achieved on or before 2017, that there won’t be any elephant in the room to debate on during the next presidential debate. The possibility that Dr. Mutua could be having the ambition for the next big office gives me hope that the projects he is spearheading are well intended and honest.
Unless majority of the Governor’s join Dr. Mutua, Hon. Hassan Joho of Mombasa and Cyprian Awiti of Homa-Bay in having big dreams for their respective county’s, unless the Governor’s attract investors to establish processing plants for the various raw materials in abundance in their respective county’s, unless the central government stops making unrealistic promises like those for electrifying every rural primary school by January 2014, providing free Wi-Fi by I don’t know when, and relentlessly supporting unproductive projects like the laptop for every class one pupil whose source of funding she wants to borrow (expense without ROI), then we as a country can as well forget the vision 2030.
I join hands in supporting Dr. Mutua. I may be wrong but I have all the reasons to believe that MachaCity is not a white elephant in the making.
Odipo there was no post election violence in 2017 ,but i believe it is a typo.Also the Kambas as a community did not engage in post election violence.Also your assertion that land was the crux of the PEV,i think it was purely politics.
Typo noted and corrected. Thanks
ok
Thank God its a dream. People are allowed to dream. You are going to see even weirder and more spectacular blueprints that will bedazzle the weak mind and charm the political slave.
I have a feeling this MachaCity will come to be and the main incentive will be land. Right now there is a serious shortage of accommodation in Nairobi and the developers are paying huge sums of money to acquire the land to build. If Macha gives out the land free and agrees with the developers on how they’ll share the proceeds of development, methinks Macha will be the next destination of the new homes for Nairobians and consequently other services.