10-year delay at cement plant undermines West Pokot’s hope for economic growth

Dinah Chesister, 34, a mother of four, spends most of her day crushing rocks in a small quarry on the Makutano-Lodwar Highway in Sebit in West Pokot County, occasionally joining other women as she ‘They sort and display the ballast by the side of the road for sale to potential buyers.

It is a routine activity for many women of Sebit and Ortum along the highway, forced by difficult economic conditions to abandon their traditional household chores and engage in back-breaking commerce.

The men avoid the harsh stone-crushing business and instead focus on grazing livestock – their main source of income – and protecting the community from aggressors in the bandit-prone area.

“We buy the stones in blocks of Sh 1,300 or more from landowners or diggers, then use hammers to break them down into gravel ready for sale. A 20 liter bucket costs 150 Sh or less, depending on market demand, ”explains Ms. Chesister.

Sometimes women go weeks without making a single sale, despite spending many hours in the grueling stone crushing jobs.

Sebit and Ortum are rich in limestone, the basic raw material for cement processing.

The community had planned for hundreds of jobs on the promise of building a cement plant in the area a decade ago, but that hope turned into desperation, forcing women like Margaret Jairo to come to the brink of the road to crush the ballast.

“It’s like living near a river but washing your hands with saliva. These areas are rich in limestone but no investor has set up a factory to help transform our economy. So we have no choice but to break down the precious ballast resource to make a living, ”said Ms. Jairo, who sells limestone in Kapng’arng’ar along the road to Lodwar.

Limestone deposits stretch on both sides of the Kapenguria-Lodwar highway from Chepareria to Ortum, a distance of 30 kilometers.

Feasibility studies conducted by the government have identified large deposits of limestone in the Ortum-Sebit region of Pokot Central, enough to support the production of 300,000 metric tons of cement per year.

News of the potential construction of a cement factory ten years ago was greeted with great hope by locals who hoped to benefit economically and socially, including through business and employment.

The factory was to be built by Cemtech Ltd, a subsidiary of Sanghi Group of India, which had already received all the required documents from the relevant departments of the Kenyan government.

The group was to set up a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly cement plant, as well as staff housing, schools, a medical center, staff training center and other facilities on 650 acres of freehold land. , which the company had bought from the local population.

As part of the project plan, the group was also to set up a 64 megawatt power plant, where 14 megawatts would be used in the plant and 50 megawatts for sale to the national grid.

The plant was to directly employ 1,200 people when fully completed and indirectly benefit 40,000 other residents of the arid region.

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga started construction of the Sebit Center factory in July 2010.

No work has taken place to date. The only activity in the field is the leveling of the ground for the construction of the plant.

However, there have been some positive moves on the long-awaited project in recent days. It was after Simba Cement, owned by Kenyan businessman Narendra Raval, bought Cemtech and is now in the advanced phase of relaunching the cement project.

For the businessmen who have camped in the area since 2010 to profit from the construction of the plant, it has been a painful lesson.

Many arrived immediately after commissioning and set up business premises and rental homes targeting factory workers.

“The entrepreneurs expected their businesses to improve and the region’s entire economy to grow, just for things to go south. People have given up hope, ”said Thomas Lireng, a businessman at Sebit Mall.

They are now hoping that the acquisition by Simba Cement, which has a good track record of implementing similar projects in previously untapped places such as Nakuru, will soon revive the long-awaited project.

Simba Cement has acquired 100 percent of the business and assets of Cemtech and is expected to start construction on the cement plant last year.

The company had to organize public participation and consultative forums with local leaders after receiving a license to build the cement plant.

The areas where the company has obtained the exploitation rights include Puseli, Chepkol, Sebiit, Ortun, Iyon and Marich in the Ortum belt.

When Mining and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary John Munyes visited Sebit to unveil plans for the construction of the cement plant in 2019, he said the construction process would take 18 months after all licenses were granted and the process was completed. public participation completed.

For residents, examples elsewhere show the impact such a factory can have on the local economy.

For example, Simba Cement’s 750,000-tonne, 6 billion shillings Nakuru plant in Salgaa on the Nakuru-Eldoret highway has created at least 1,000 direct jobs.

Such a factory also generates hundreds of additional indirect jobs as workers need to be housed, fed and entertained. Transporters also benefit from contracts to move cement and supply employees.

The town of Athi River, which has become a bustling urban center, thrives thanks to several cement factories operating in the region, with neighboring satellite towns such as Kitengela and Mlolongo also benefiting immensely from the resources of the cement factory workers. .

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