Nakuru's sustainable development thruogh sustainable businesss

Nakuru Business Association NBA's job of promoting Nakuru as the prime business destination in the region is one that involves creating and maintaining an environment within which it is easy to start and run a business so as to attract more and retain the currently present investors.

The process of starting up, and developing a business is not just an adventure, but also a real challenge. In order to help entrepreneurs with this, it is essential to create a favorable business environment.
Ensuring easier access to funding, making legislation clearer and more effective and developing an entrepreneurial culture and support networks for businesses are all instrumental as far as the setting up and growth of businesses are concerned.
However, creating a favorable business environment does not mean simply improving the growth potential of businesses. It also means turning Nakuru into a place in which it is advantageous to invest, live and work. In this way, the promotion of corporate social responsibility is contributing to making business in Nakuru more attractive.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up over 90% of Nakuru businesses. Their small size makes them very sensitive to changes in the industry and environment in which they operate. It is therefore vital for their well-being to be a focus of political, local governance, infrastructure, attention.


In this series of posts we hope to discuss who's Job this is, what it entails as in challenges and opportunities therein, the practical steps to actualize this viability and way forward.

We are open to digressions that might be influenced by your feedback.

To give somewhat of a framework we are listing aspects of an attractive business environment in a developing country then compare to how Nakuru town matches up to them, given the listed and or quoted economic facts particular to Nakuru. It is against this benchmarks that we will be able to derive our contributions.

for the sake of direction we would like to begin with comparing Nakuru town's attractiveness as a business destination compared to Twelve Key towns in Kenya and within the eastern Africa region.Nairobi,Mombasa,Kisumu,Eldoret,Nyeri,Narok,Kampala,
Dare-salaam,Moshi,Bunjumbura,Kigali,Juba).These Are the business destinations we consider our greatest competition. We hope to establish a formula for ranking and a course of action of how best to beat each of them in the eyes of our niche prospects.

But first things first, It is time we narrowed down to a few business activities, when that is mentioned Agriculture and tourism pop-up instantly and they are very good platforms to stand on but is that all we can do? Now that huge geothermal potential is already a bust around us should energy be added to the list? With the integration of the east Africa trade and political aspects on high gear should we be thinking business support activities as well?

These are key questions we will need to answer as we narrow down on the positioning we are now developing as a business destination. These answers will further help us prioritize and harmonize the competing interests that will inevitably surface in the process of building an attractive business environment.

We will start small on this discussion by looking at how we compare to the broadest and most basic and critical, social political and economic aspects of a city that make it easy to start and run any kind of business.

Affordability of permits, registering a business and enforcing contracts. We hope to come up with an inclusive action plan of making Nakuru the prime business destination in the region because we believe that is the only way to match the growth to development. We would love to have your thoughts on this.

Sources:

http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--the-external-environment--236.php

http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/DI-0833-E.pdf

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/kenya/sub/narok

Thomas Kaberi

C.E.O.

Why NBA and other stakeholders have had the MCN "fire prevention and safety by-laws 2010 halted"

The Nakuru Business Association would like to make the following observations which leads us to object to the proposed by-laws.

1. The law requires that wide consultations be carried out before any such laws are published. To the best of our knowledge no such consultations have been held.

2. The government policy as contained in the circular dated 8th June 2007 by then Permanent Secretary Ministry of Local Government is towards reducing and or consolidating licencing fees and procedures.
By this proposed by-laws MCN does not only introduce yet other licences and inspection fees that only goes to further burden the business operator within the town but place an impossible burden on them.

3. The proposed charges and fees are too high under the current circumstances, services rendered and given that this is one of the basic services that the Municipal Council ought to be rendering to its citizens for free.

4. The proposed by-laws may be in conflict with other laws such as Fire Inquiry Act Cap 103 Laws of Kenya, the Traffic Act and other laws and more importantly, the constitution of the land. Examples of this abound in the proposed by-laws.

5. Nakuru is currently one of the fastest growing cities in Africa. It is naïve to seek to monopolize fire-fighting services more so be given the limited capacity of MCN’s fire-brigade. The rules should open for volunteer or private fire fighters as happened in Nairobi where some security companies and other government agencies and the army offer fire fighting services.

6. The by-laws should only be operationalized after the fire brigade has been fully established, equipped and have demonstrated its capacity to deliver. It is otherwise.

7. It is not right that a council should by law obsolve itself of liability in the conduct of its services. Professional misconduct, negligence, mis-conduct in the fire brigade should lie where it belongs.

8. Some of the provisions in regard to making fire are too restrictive as to be unconstitutional particularly when it say “any fire”.

9. The requirement for frequent inspections all at the cost of the citizen is unnecesary burden. Twice a year is a heavy yoke for citizen to bear.

10. The application of the by-laws to owner and occupier will be harrasing small scale traders and service providers. In any case if a building has 200 “occupiers” would it require each and every one of them fire fighting equipment?

We have requested that MCN suspends the gazettement until these and other issues are discussed.

Yours faithfully,


KAMONJO KIBURI,
SECRETARY
NAKURU BUSINESS ASSOCIATION

Discussion framework for Nakuru Regional Business Agenda

Nakuru Regional Business Agenda (RBA)

Background
The Nakuru Regional Business Agenda is a product of the Business Membership organisations that are based on Nakuru and its environs. It has been developed to provide a forum through which the private sector in Nakuru and its environs can articulate key concerns affecting them in various ways and which also contribute to the high cost of doing business. These are the issues which the private sector feels the Government should tackle in order to deepen investments and enable the business community play its key role of wealth and job creation.

The intention is to make the process of developing business concerns and having roundtable meetings with the Government regular. This is aimed presenting a unified voice of business to the authorities and complement advocacy efforts of individual Business Membership Organisations (BMOs)

The organisations that have been involved in this endeavour are:
Budget Hotels Association; Central Jua Kali Association; Create Africa; Federation Of Kenya Employers/ Agricultural Employers Association; Hindu Council; Kenya Association Of Manufacturers; Kenya National Alliance Of Street Vendors & Informal Traders Association; Kenya National Chamber Of Commerce And Industry; Nakuru Business Association; Nakuru Citywide Resident Association; Tenants Association

Nakuru’s business community wants the Government “to consider investors in a positive way”. This, it says, is the only way in which investments in the town can be deepened, in the process creating jobs for thousands of unemployed youth and fostering development in the region.

“It is no longer fun to invest in Nakuru because of the high cost of doing business with regard to every aspect including poor power supply, water problems because the council does not supply water and corruption among others,” says Spin Knit Ltd’s Mr. Jayesh Shah, who is also KAM Nakuru Chapter Chairman.

Most of the problems bedevilling Nakuru town have been attributed to poor planning by the planning department and the sudden increase in the town’s population following the 2007/08 post election violence.

The Nakuru Regional Business Agenda identifies six priority areas that should be worked on in order to deepen private sector development in Nakuru town and reduce the cost of doing business. These six, are the main challenges facing the towns business community and greatly hindering development.

Apart from identifying these six challenges, the Nakuru RBA also proposes actions and possible solutions to these problems if Nakuru is to have a conducive environment for increased investments and wealth creation.

The problem areas are as follows:
a. Provision of adequate and efficient infrastructure and Labour laws
b. Fighting crime and insecurity
c. Land rates and valuation
d. Corruption
e. Service delivery by the Local Authority
f. Environment

info@nba.co.ke