@ciokariga asked…
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One can guess that there was an expectation that the government would help address some of the issues which developed over the last 3 decades.
One of the main issues is demographic related. The type of migration we are accustomed to, is the rural to urban migration, but sections of Central Kenya experience a rural to rural migration, usually people moving from far of regions for seasonal work or long term casual work. Another greater more problematic phenomena, triggered by the periodic election violence has seen a large number of people move into the area permanently without the possibility of returning to their evicted homes or places of work. Further, the evicting communities experienced a decline of work opportunities and in recent years/months, there has been an observed rise in large numbers of people from the “evict-or” communities following the “evicted” into the central region (plus South Rift valley regions) in search of work.
Such demographic changes occurred in the absence of any planning to factor in, a rapid influx of people without any economic growth, to ensure job creation or funding for increased demand in health, education, employment, housing services etc.; any region or country will eventually feel the impact and begin to groan, Sections of Central are an assemblage of hurriedly erected slum dwellings, a catastrophe, especially when there is an increase of people living in absolute poverty triggering other social problem i.e. crime activity and the fastest decline in Education standards (which is another subject altogether)
It is very likely the incoming population are accounted for elsewhere, however, they actually access services in Central area introducing a financial deficit gap in allocated development funds.
Often the infrastructural development records constantly cited about central kenya include those created during colonial times, inclusion of roads or clinics setup in plantation estates or missions who left long ago or roads which became a jungle of potholes is misleading. Areas of high population without infrastructure is visible to the public and voters have an expectation for improvement.
Unlike some regions of the country there is no real diversification or value addition activities. I stand to be corrected on this one, it appears there is a certain culture which prohibits Kikuyu men doing farm work; when there is no other work they hang around the slum like centers drinking = alcoholism. A cultural re-education is required– God has already bestowed good soil and great possibilities to the area.
Finally, many of the bright minds originating from Central Kenya are encouraged to go into the money sectors, resulting in deficiency of skills in virtually all other creative sectors, most A+ minds are unwisely conditioned to pursue finance or estates. As a result ‘The Region’ has very successful cash rich Sacco’s but with a creative poor, visionless populace unable to utilise the funds to make a trans-formative forward leap. There is a need to establishment a right mix of technical colleges in the region “why” – because there is a reserve of capital.
There is a country in Europe, a large influx of Easter Europeans migrated there, balance of local regional services was affect, lowered wages, access to health, education, housing became too expensive etc. The EEU unable to comprehend the groan – the citizens voted to leave the EEU.
The moment people associate a problem in their background with specific entities the reaction is to reject and fight against them, turning it into a political battle. Central Kenya vote as a block to barricade against social and economic problems introduced by persons or electoral violence. So pay attention to this. No MOU is likely to bring this barrier completely down.