Its now apparent that development in Kenya will largely be focused on these new political units. Post any news, discussions and developments regarding the counties here.

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Top Five Counties by population.

1. NAIROBI 3,138,369

38. KAKAMEGA 1,660,651

40 .BUNGOMA 1,630,934

23. KIAMBU 1,623,282

33. NAKURU 1,603,325

Bottom 5 counties by population.

TAITA TAVETA 284,657

TANA RIVER 240,075

SAMBURU 223,947

ISIOLO 143,294

LAMU 101,539

Population key to sharing of funds

Daily Nation,
Monday
September 6, 2010

Heavily populated counties are likely to get the bulk of funding from the National Government if population becomes the key factor in determining sharing of revenue.

The new Constitution requires that at least 15 per cent of all revenue collected by the central government be disbursed to the 47 counties.

However, the actual figures will be determined by the yet-to-be established Commission on Revenue Allocation whose job will be to come up with a criteria that will guide the sharing of tax money between the national government and the counties.

The criteria will include factors such as population, infrastructure, the economic needs of a county and its viability. The commission will have powers to recommend how the money will be shared.

To ensure fairness, Articles 202 and 203 of the constitution stipulate the conditions that the commission must adhere to when sharing out the money.

Parliamentary Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee vice chairman Ababu Namwamba said the money will be shared in a way that takes into account fairness to all counties.

“For instance Kakamega County with nine constituencies and nearly two million people cannot get the same allocation as Vihiga that has four constituencies and less than half a million people.

“Equal mounts will result in unfairness to some counties and a formula will be specified in legislations that will be passed on counties,” he said.

According to Mr Nzamba Kitonga, the chairman of the Committee of Experts that wrote the new Constitution, all counties will first be allocate equal amounts before other factors are considered.

“The principle is that they start at the same amounts and then the factors in each are taken into account to determine the final figures,” he said.

The Constitution provides for an Equalisation Fund meant to give special attention for under-developed and neglected areas. Ms Njoki Ndung’u, a member of the Committee of Experts, said population will be the key factor.

“It is not possible for the counties to receive the same amounts. There are factors in the constitution which will determine the amounts and it is likely that big cities and metropolis will get huge amounts.”

Given the current budget figure of Sh1 trillion, it means that each county — should the money be shared equally — will receive Sh3 billion from the National Government. “You cannot imagine the Nairobi county receiving Sh3 billion because it cannot sustain its population,” she said.
If population is the main factor, Nairobi County with a population of 3.13 million, Kakamega (1.66 million), Bungoma (1.63 million), Kiambu (1.62 million) and Nakuru (1.60 million) will receive the highest.

i wonder if every county will have its own power company, because I really hate the current one (KPLC)!

i wonder if every county will have its own power company, because I really hate the current one (KPLC)!

Of course not! Though there's a second power company on the way which I hope will provide some competition and improve services.

I guess this is a better map of the counties.

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Uasin Gishu County.

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Home to Who’s Who in big time farming

Daily Nation,
By EMMAN OMARI .
Posted Tuesday, April 5 2011.

A wealthy county with a rich heritage, Uasin Gishu has it all.

It has big farmers, both African and white. It is the place where a tourist will find traces of early banking and get to know British royalty’s clubs.
It has the undying South African Boer connection.

And it is one county where all the grain that feeds Kenya is grown: wheat, barley and maize, plus beans, other vegetables and dairy produce like milk butter and cheese.Flowers are grown there, too.

And it is also home to Kenya’s world-beating athletes who have put the country on the international map.

In big time farming, Uasin Gishu is home to the Who’s Who of agriculture … starting with former President Daniel arap Moi in Maji Mazuri.

Stephanus Kruger, a leading white farmer in Sergoit, George Smith of the former Abraham Cotzee farm near Chepkoilel Campus, Mark Too at Kapseret, the late Reuben Chesire in Makonge, Jackson Kibor in Ziwa, Nicholas Biwott in Chepkonge, William Chemweno and Silas Tiren in Moiben and Samuel Kibogy in Kaptagat — all farm more than 3,000 acres apiece.

They are the serious commercial farmers who give the county its identity as the granary of Kenya.

In athletics, from Kipchoge Keino to the youngest gold medallists of today, most of Kenya’s runners come from Uasin Gishu where high altitude has provided a natural training habitat.

The athletes earn big money and invest in their home villages and towns with a variety of holdings ranging from Kip Keino’s training schools to high rise buildings in Eldoret.

Situated on the highest altitude in the country, Uasin Gishu was chosen by the Boers for its rich fertile soils on flat land, just like South Africa’s veldt from whence they came.

In the course of reconstruction, local people have to be ingenious, thoughtful and methodical as they embark on the difficult task of rebuilding Kenya’s bread basket.

The Kalenjin who live there — the Keiyo, Marakwet, Tugen, Nandi and Kipsigis — enjoy a symbiotic relationship with other peoples, where those with farming talent live side by side with those whose instincts are for business. Kikuyu who settle in Uasin Gishu offer commercial skills while the Luhya, Luo and Turkana broadly provide service jobs and labour.

The new county government will be faced with the task of erasing the images of post-election violence which dot the region. It will begin with rebuilding the shells of burnt-out shops in trading centres on the Nakuru-Eldoret road, to the iron-roofed timber huts built by Kenya Red Cross for the displaced, and the IDP camp at Yamumbi that still houses 108 people.
Then the county will have to rebuild confidence among other communities to make them return and help develop the county as they were doing before the mayhem started.

The county government will also have to confront the inevitable land sub-divisions that pose a threat to big-time farming.

A localised land policy that would discourage sub-divisions beneath a certain acreage will ensure that the county remains the country’s bread basket. It would then grow food to send to other counties and ensure its riches remain intact.

Where both whites and blacks farm thousands of acres

Daily Nation,
Wednesday, April 6 2011
By EMMAN OMARI.

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Uasin Gishu is a farming county with a difference. For both white farmers and black farmers feed this nation from their 3,000-plus acre holdings. Here is the tale of two farmers: both Kenyans but one white and the other black.

Stephanus Kruger is the face of South Africa’s Boer settlers who pioneered large-scale farming in Uasin Gishu.

He has lived in two eras, seeing his father Mr J. E. Kruger farm in the colonial days and now himself in independent Kenya.

He is a third generation member of the Kruger family that migrated from South Africa to Uasin Gishu to settle, where the world community toyed for many years with the idea of sending homeless Jews to, before they settled on Israel.

“My name Kruger is like Mwangi in Kenya, we belong to the Kruger tree of names,” he joked.

It takes four hours to drive around his 5,000 acres of highly mechanised farm at Sergoit – the size of an entire sub-location in densely populated areas of Kenya.

The sophistication on Mr Kruger’s farm is comparable to farmlands in Europe and in South Africa.

It has a one kilometre runway to begin with, a landing pad from where Mr Kruger, himself a pilot, flies to Nairobi to get spare parts for his machinery.

“You will waste a whole day to drive to Nairobi and back, I take only a few hours to fly to Wilson Airport and back,” he explained.

An assortment of the machinery on his farm ranges from ploughing tractors to combine harvesters, spraying machines and road graders.

His machinery is from leading world class manufacturers such as John Deere, the oldest farm machinery manufactures of the United States.

The farm has silos with a capacity to store 4,000 tonnes of grain at any given time, approximately 44,000 bags of maize. Most of his clients, the big millers, go to collect from him instead of the other way round.

He has 1,500 acres under barley, 2,000 under maize and 1,000 under wheat. He even owns a hill of 400 acres which is used as a wildlife sanctuary in which he keeps Rothschild giraffes, antelopes and little duikers.

The balance of 100 acres is taken up by his dairy, his home compound, and 110 kilometers of graded road network... equal to the distance between Nairobi and Gilgil; or, from Eldoret to Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border.

He draws his water from springs powered by windmills. Mr Kruger estimates that if he were to sell his farm as a going concern, it would fetch Sh1.5 billion.

The Kenyan farmer, he lamented, is treated by the Government as a second class citizen. “Farmers, unlike other businesses, are price-takers rather than price-setters. The price is set for the farmer by people who do not know what it costs to produce a bag of maize,” he said.

Then, the Government is more interested in supporting foreign farmers by importing grain. “This is the same money foreign countries turn over and give us as loans. So we export our wealth to loan ourselves and in turn pay foreign countries to add to their billions.”

This will continue until the Government realises that the money used to import cheap grain can be turned into incentives for local farmers in the form of subsidised fertilisers, credit, insurance and waivers on farm machinery.

Mr Kruger feels the problems of big farmers and a small one are the same. The new Uasin Gishu county government, he said, will be faced with the challenges of setting local laws to protect large scale and small farmers to allow them to coexist and produce enough to export.

Mr Mark Too is among 10 leading farmers in Uasin Gishu county. Formerly one of the most influential politicians in the Moi regime, he has settled down to big time farming combining crop, dairy and trees.

Black farmers bought their farms from departing conglomerates or white farmers after Independence. His farm, previously owned by East African Tanning and Extract Company, is at Kapsaret, 40 kilometres from Mr Kruger’s.

The uniqueness of Mr Too’s farm lies in the challenges he faced in converting it into arable land.

Unlike other farmers who inherited ready farmlands from departing white farmers, he had to pump in vast resources because it had wattle trees, making the soil unsuitable for crops.

Unlike Mr Kruger, his 3,000-plus acre farm is naturally endowed with three rivers, the Kipkaren, the Leberio and a local stream.

From the acidic soils that bore wattle trees, he has made his land fertile by using organic manure from animals plus inorganic fertiliser.

“I had a very difficult task uprooting the wattle trees. Occasionally I thought of giving up midway, then tilling the soil and leaving it fallow for sometime to soften and enrich it with organic manure,” he said.

Today, Mr Too farms 500 acres of maize, another 500 of wheat, 1,000 acres for grazing, and in the rest he has planted gum trees to supply electricity poles to Kenya Power and Lighting Company.

He has 13 paddocks holding 1,500 animals, both for dairy and beef. His clients are the National Cereals and Produce Board, big millers and Brookside to whom he sells 2,500 litres of milk daily.

He values his machinery at Sh30 million and it includes tractors, combine harvesters and spraying machines. Like others, Mr Too wants the government to protect the local farmer by stopping imports.

The farmers must be able to set their own prices guided by the market and central government should also subsidise farm inputs, he said.

The incoming county government should enact strict laws to prevent animal diseases. It should also invest in agricultural extension workers, who should carry out routine checks to monitor animal diseases, then restrict movement until animals in that area are treated.

The county government should also produce a land policy, discourage the sub-division of land into small units and instead encourage group farming such as cooperatives for small-scale farmers.

The county government should invest in industries related to local farm produce to diversify and maximise returns. That, he feels, would give the county a wider tax net and help it to become one of the richest in the country.

Isn't distribution of funds to counties almost the same as CDF money?Some of the MPs were misusing the CDF money,I dont know how this will go:dunno:

Isn't distribution of funds to counties almost the same as CDF money?Some of the MPs were misusing the CDF money,I dont know how this will go:dunno:

No. CDF is given at the constituency level. The county funds are totally different...think of it as a bigger version of CDF covering a wider area.

On the whole, the CDF idea was a success. One of the reasons for the recent economic growth in the country.

I agree with Kenguy,the CDF idea has really taken development to the grassroots.There are probably hundreds of classrooms,health centres,repaired roads,bridges,dug wells etc as a result of CDF.The County funds will take development to a bigger area and it will have a bigger impact.

^^ It depends on which constituencies you are talking about because there was many scandals involving CDF funds.I hope the counties wont experience the same

^^ It depends on which constituencies you are talking about because there was many scandals involving CDF funds.I hope the counties wont experience the same

You have a point Jamaa. Some constituencies like Gatanga used their funds really well. The string of community development projects there would leave Kenyans in other constituencies green with envy. This is one of the reasons I admire their MP, Hon. Peter Kenneth, alot.

Others didn't. Like in my constituency (Nyeri town constituency) the CDF funds were really misused. They painted the roofs of a few public schools and wasted funds on other projects which didn't have an impact. To sum it up, The MP at the time, Hon. PG Mureithi, didn't get to see another term in parliament based on that record.

That does not mean however that the county funds will be mismanaged. To start with, if you look closely at boards being formed to represent the counties, membership is drawn from a vast array of individuals who are mainly professionals, leading businessmen etc who I hope will scrutinize the misuse of funds by narrow minded politicians.

Plus, I think Kenya's future leadership will be determined by ones record in county governance. For example a successful governor or senator may one day run for presidency based on their record in county governance and solving problems within their respective counties. If that happens, that will indicate a new shift in Kenya's politics which will be based on issues rather than its current form.

You have a point Jamaa. Some constituencies like Gatanga used their funds really well. The string of community development projects there would leave Kenyans in other constituencies green with envy. This is one of the reasons I admire their MP, Hon. Peter Kenneth, alot.

Others didn't. Like in my constituency (Nyeri town constituency) the CDF funds were really misused. They painted the roofs of a few public schools and wasted funds on other projects which didn't have an impact. To sum it up, The MP at the time, Hon. PG Mureithi, didn't get to see another term in parliament based on that record.

That does not mean however that the county funds will be mismanaged. To start with, if you look closely at boards being formed to represent the counties, membership is drawn from a vast array of individuals who are mainly professionals, leading businessmen etc who I hope will scrutinize the misuse of funds by narrow minded politicians.

Plus, I think Kenya's future leadership will be determined by ones record in county governance. For example a successful governor or senator may one day run for presidency based on their record in county governance and solving problems within their respective counties. If that happens, that will indicate a new shift in Kenya's politics which will be based on issues rather than its current form.
+1

Tharaka County

The Village with Too Much Electricity.

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