New dawn for traders in Nyeri County

 

NTraders in Nyeri County will tonight go to bed smiling and expectant about business in the coming days.

President Uhuru Kenyatta todat finally officially opened the Karatina market in Nyeri after almost ten years of wrangles that made the project stall. The construction of the project, which was commissioned in 2010, had been affected by politics and constant change of contractors.

The market’s rehabilitation entails the construction of a three storey building with 8,000 square metre floor space, underground parking and a cold storage facility.

 

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Karatina market which is the second largest open air market in Africa after Nigeria’s Kano, started operating in 1938 as a barter trade center where transactions were carried out under a small tree known as “Karatina” before it  eventually sprung into a shopping center during the construction of the Nairobi-Nanyuki railway line.

 

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Since it’s commissioning, the multi-million rehabilitation project has been dogged by endless controversies that led to its stalling. Its rehabilitation was meant to be a key achievement of former President Mwai Kibaki under the Kenya Economic Stimulus Program (ESP) whose idea was to boost economic growth and lift the economy out of a serious recession that hit the country after the 2007/2008 post-election violence.

Former President Kibaki and the then Mathira MP, (now Nyeri Senator) Ephraim Maina, commissioned the construction of the project in 2009 and pledged that it would be completed by July 2013.

The project became a major political campaign tool in two successive elections; 2013 and 2017 with politicians promising to champion its completion once they assumed leadership. During the 2013 elections, the project featured prominently in the Nyeri gubernatorial contest between the late Governor Ndiritu Gachagua and the late Wahome Gakuru, with each promising to lobby for its completion.

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Mr Gachagua on assuming office visited the site, where he promised the traders that the project would be jump started and completed a few days.  Two years later, there was virtually no activity until 2015 when the project was “re -launched” by the then Lands and Urban Development Cabinet Secretary Joseph Kaimenyi.

The cost of the project is said to have shot up over that period from the initial budget of Ksh. 260 million to a staggering Sh400 million owing to the delay, change of contractors and rising cost of building materials. Stakeholders have argued that the project could have been affected by vested interests, local political rivalries, bureaucracy and under funding, much to the detriment of thousands of traders who rely on it.

“We are disappointed and concerned that despite the assurances we got from politicians, it has become obvious they do not have the interest of traders. They have been playing politics with this project,” said Mr Gerald Kimondo, the chairman of Karatina Market Traders Association.

Mathira MP, Rigathi Gachagua has since been rooting for the completion of the market.

 “This is an embarrassment to the government and all of us, in fact some of us have been forced to dodge traders who keep asking us about this project. We have been taken round in circles for nine years and we will not take it anymore,” he said.

However, despite all the drama and the certainly long wait, today marked a new dawn in Nyeri County as the traders dreams have now become a reality.

“We are indeed very grateful to the leaders who have pushed this project to its logical conclusion. It is a happy ending and we believe this time we are getting the real deal,” said Mr Kimondo.

 

Why do you think the construction of the Karatina Market has taken this long?

 

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