The once vibrant and bustling towns that thrived with
lucrative businesses now face a doomed future because of their over dependence
on income generated from the ailing or grounded factories that spewed them into
life.
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| The struggling Webuye town |
Western Kenya is home to a number of multi-billion shillings
factories that once roared life and sustained a variety of businesses that operated
across many towns and trading centers for many years before the factories
collapsed. The towns are now gripped in deadly economic stagnation, grinding them
to ghost centers.
The once vibrant and bustling towns that thrived with
lucrative businesses now face a doomed future because of their over dependence
on income generated from the ailing or grounded factories that once spewed them into
life.
The Lake Region Counties Economic Bloc Kenya National
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) Spokesman Hillary Kasili told The Weekly
Vision that the towns are threatened be consigned into ghost towns
because their mother factories are dead, financially crippled and operating
below capacity –thus starved of cash and business.
Mr. Kasili said they include Webuye, Malakisi, Awendo,
Muhoroni, Chemilil, Miwani, Nzoia crowned by a cluster of towns in Mumias
Sub-county among others. He said: “Most of the factories were sugar producers,
apart from Pan Paper Mills.
He said Miwani sugar
factory constructed on the vast endless Kibos plains in Kisumu County,
triggered into life Miwani trading centre as it attracted thousands of workers who
in turn sort housing at the centre after landing jobs in the factory and
eventually spending their earnings locally – Kisumu was too far – more than 30 kilometers away.
When it was put under receivership in the year 2000
sugarcane plantations with armies of plantation workers servicing just like
their other factories’ counterparts were eclipsed out – thus effectively
killing the town’s lifeline and backbone,” the regional KNCCI spokesman said.
Today the once booming trading center has been reduced to
rubble. The business and residential houses that was once a beehive of activity
have fallen silent.
The other town which burst into life in 1966 is Muhoroni
also in Kisumu County as a result of the construction of Muhoroni Sugar
Company’s sugar factory, just like Miwani it depended on a large sugarcane
plantations and a huge workforce.
Hundreds of the once booming general merchandise shops,
bars, restaurants, hotels and guest houses, open air markets are no more.
Mr. Kasili says the worst hit town is Webuye town, the
second largest town in Bungoma County. The arrival of the giant and largest
paper/newsprint producer in Eastern and Central Africa – Pan-Paper Mills
complete with a tar-macked airstrip to serve business interests of the town in the
1970s was a major blessing to locals.
Production of paper at the huge factory with thousands of
workers right from the managerial, senior, junior and casual workers, attracted
multi-million shillings business entities to the town..
According to the Bungoma County Governor, Wycliffe Wangamati
the town used to attract spenders from as far as Eldoret in Uasin Gishu County,
Kitale in Trans Nzoia County, Bungoma’s neighbouring Kakamega and Busia
Counties, Kisumu and Vihiga counties as well as Uganda.
He says that at its height Webuye town’s business used to
thrive twenty four hours with millions of shillings going through it every day
augmented by long distance heavy duty trailer cargo transporters plying the
Mombasa – Malaba highway and on to Uganda’s Tororo – Kampala capital and Mbale
in Uganda.
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