KCB VENTURE 1 final

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26 | How first tarmac road is transforming Wajir
COUNTY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT According to Wajir County, majority of the 700,000 residents had never seen tarmack before. That is now history for this north eastern town D ubow Abdi has lived his entire life in northern Kenya. Born 66 years ago 15 kilometers east of Wajir town, one of the oldest hamlets in northern Kenya, he has lived through the colonial period and the village elder has been around long enough to have seen it all. Or so he thought. Mr. Abdi has not travelled that much. He has only managed to visit several towns within northern Kenya, the likes of Habwasein, Eldas and El Wak. But like most people in his village Mzee Abdi had never seen a tarmacked road prior to 2014. So, when the county government announced in late 2013, that it had prioritized the construction of a tarmacked road in Wajir town, he slaughtered a camel for his family in anticipation. On the day that Ogle Construction Company - the first contractor to lay the town’s tarmac - applied the first sealant, the section which protects water from seeping through the foundation of the road, Mzee Abdi, his three wives and eleven of his children literally camped in Wajir town to get a feel of the tarmac. “It’s very funny that we didn’t know that it was not even tarmacked. But, we didn’t care because my wives and my children had never seen a tarmac road before,” he said during an interview in Wajir for Venture. Since that day, almost two years now, Mzee Abdi has made it his business to ferry people from the interiors of Wajir County - one of Kenya ’s largest counties which occupies 10 per cent of the land mass of the country - to see the tarmac. “We started by walking, then started using boda bodas and we now use taxis. I used to charge Sh. 100 for someone to come and see the new road but I lost business when people discovered that you can see, hold, touch and sit on the tarmac road without paying a penny,” he says with a cheeky smile. Mzee Abdi is not alone. According to the Wajir County Government, a majority of over 700,000 residents of the County had never seen a tarmac road before the county constructed the first kilometer in 2014. | 27
Page 1 and 2: TRENDS INTEL INDUSTRY COUNTY PURSUI
Page 3 and 4: 11 VW arrival in Kenya boosts FDI p
Page 5 and 6: OPINION Growing Business Through Pa
Page 7 and 8: Facts: Agriculture contributes abou
Page 9 and 10: CLIMATE CHANGE Cleaner energy: lead
Page 11 and 12: TRANSPORT Lightening the Load for N
Page 13 and 14: COVER STORY Stepping into the spaci
Page 15 and 16: COVER STORY he fondly remembers as
Page 17 and 18: INDUSTRY FOCUS: HOSPITALITY Four me
Page 19 and 20: INDUSTRY FOCUS: HOSPITALITY we all
Page 21 and 22: akes a splash KCB Bank’s Sh5 bill
Page 23 and 24: INDUSTRY FOCUS: HOSPITALITY “We h
Page 25: “We have two projects in Nairobi;
Page 29 and 30: COUNTY: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT entere
Page 31 and 32: ““Before the tarmac road, we ha
Page 33 and 34: PROJECT FINANCE If you take a walk
Page 35 and 36: manufacturing ingredients, there is
Page 37 and 38: SWINGING Golf made easy G olf is no
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KCB VENTURE 1 final

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