Honia-Heal Afrika Initiative (HAI)

By the pen of Gĩtaũ wa Kũng’ũ (profgitauwakungu@gmail.com)

Now, Dr. Kang’ata’s Smart City program is indubitably laying the foundation rock for future developments, within the Murang’a County Land Planning Strategy.
The governor thus, must implement the program in a sustainable development plan that will not only take account of the Major 5 UNCRD Smart City focal points but also include Smart Agriculture.
Amongst the Smart City infrastructural programs should include a strategically positioned airstrip(probably in Kigumo Sub County).

A Rapid Bus Transit (RBT) system that is eco-friendly (solar/electric powered), connecting Murang’a-Kangari-Kenol towns shall be another very effective project under the Smart City program. This will definitely open up the county for more local and international investors.

The Smart Agriculture program will complement the Smart City program too. This must involve the development of essential sustainable land planning policies to protect the agricultural sector from losing acreage to the encroaching real estate sector that is on insatiable appetites for arable land.

Otherwise, if left unchecked, it will result to the loss of the more needed agricultural land in the future for sustainable food security.
The county government must also find a lasting fraternal solution to the long standing water resource conflict with Nairobi Metropolitan. Why?
By 2050, if an improved Murang’a County Sustainable Development Plan is implemented strategically and smartly, with increasing urban population will the water and food consumption increase.
Some parts like the Eastern Murang’a region, covering the lower parts
of Kigumo, Kandara, Kiharu and Maragua Sub Counties receive less rain and crop production requires consistent irrigation. Some areas like Kahumbu Ward in Kigumo have no connection to piped water.

What awaits in the future, when Nairobi Water and Sanitation Company’s Ndakainí dam complements the rivers in the county in shrinking in volume,  and Tana water catchment  resource douse us into ashes and fly dusts of death and into the city and it’s Kiambu suburbs?

It’s time the county looks at the matter with its due seriousness.