On June 21, 2022, KEPSA held an engagement meeting with the Nairobi County gubernatorial candidate Hon. Johnson Sakaja where the Private Sector Economic Manifesto for Nairobi County was consequently presented to the Kenya Kwanza Alliance candidate.

Hon. Sakaja was accompanied by his running mate Mr. Njoroge Muchiri in the meeting that was held at Radisson Blu Hotel, Upper Hill. The KEPSA team was led by the CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki; Ms. Martha Cheruto – KEPSA Deputy CEO – Foundation; Mr. Victor Ogalo – KEPSA Deputy CEO; Mr. Mucai Kunyiha – KEPSA Director, Industrialization & Local Investments; Mr. Daniel Juma – Mkenya Daima Steering Committee among other KEPSA members.

The Manifesto seeks to make Nairobi a livable city and emphasizes eight thematic areas where the private sector wants to see a change in how the capital city is governed including e-government compliance and enforcement, healthcare, competitiveness, and jobs creation as well as culture and social inclusion.

According to the KEPSA CEO, priority interventions include a working and sustainable urban mobility and transport system, an integrated urban land use plan, water, wastewater, and solid waste management, including robust security and disaster risk management agenda for the city. “The vision of the private sector economic manifesto is to make Nairobi a livable city, and which requires among other interventions, an integrated planning approach to the provision of public goods such as infrastructure and services based on economic competitiveness, environmentally sustainable growth, social and financial inclusion as well as resilience and safety,” She said.

The meeting was part of ongoing engagements between KEPSA and the Presidential and Gubernatorial candidates to incorporate private-sector economic agenda into their manifestos. KEPSA tasked the outgoing Nairobi Senator to make Nairobi a competitive, green, inclusive, resilient, and safe city to live in, work, and do business, if he is elected on August 9, 2022.

In making the city great for business, work, and leisure, KEPSA recommended the next Nairobi County government to embrace technology and innovative solutions to usher in a world-class mobility and transport system with proper management of traffic and congestion in the city.

“It is quite sad that we don’t have a working public transport system while our neighbouring cities like Dar es Salaam, Kigali and Addis Ababa have built Bus Rapid Transit systems. We need to ensure a working BRT where all other matatus and buses feed into various locations to bring order into the city and make it attractive for investors and safe to do business in, walk and promote tourism within the city,” explained Ms. Kariuki.

For a water-scarce city, Kariuki urged the incoming county government to develop an integrated system to manage water supply and particularly have a plan to increase water sufficiency, harvesting, and recycling and adopt smart waste management systems for Nairobi saying that only 45 percent of the 2,400 tons of daily solid waste in the city was being recycled.

Speaking at the event, the outgoing Senator for Nairobi said his vision for Nairobi city was to create an orderly and dignified city, where everyone obeys the law and feels equal, regardless of their status in society. “There is need to structure Nairobi properly because we want a city that is business-friendly and we will use the Urban Areas and Cities Act to restructure affairs of the county to usher in order and accountability and use technology to avoid revenue leakages,” Said Hon. Sakaja.

Responding to the concerns of water scarcity, Hon. Sakaja said if elected, his mission would be to ensure that over 80 percent of City households that don’t have running water had it by December 2023. He also promised to deal with the issue of multiplicity of business licenses by rationalizing all of them into a single business permit that has QR code, integrates all county requirements, and reduces human interaction as much as possible using technology platforms. “All services offered at City Hall should now be made possible online across the different departments. We will make sure there’s only one all-inclusive license a business would be required to have that meets all compliance requirements of the County,” He added.

In supporting private enterprise, Hon. Sakaja said his government would set up a Kes 50 million stimulus program to boost Micro and Small Businesses in the 85 county wards in Nairobi. “We will work with KEPSA to develop and manage this program through business mentorships in the wards because we need to de-risk and support SMEs for them to also thrive,” He said.

On security and Disaster Risk Management, the private sector called on the County Governor aspirant for Nairobi to establish and operationalize a County Disaster Operation Centre, fully equipped with Early Warning Systems, hazard mapping, a disaster monitoring database, and Standard Operating Procedures detailing the full continuum of procedures for handling Level 1 and Level 2 disasters.

KEPSA, being the voice of the private sector and convener of the Mkenya Daima Initiative is seeking to work with all aspiring leaders to influence their leadership manifestos for a people-cantered and economy-led transformation of the country. “Our leaders must be able to preach peace during elections and be ready to accept the outcome of an election,” Said Mr. Daniel Juma who added that Kenyans and especially the businesses community are looking forward to a peaceful elections and smooth transitions.

The Private Sector Economic Manifesto has been developed by KEPSA through a stakeholder engagement process cutting across all sectors of the economy. It draws out key priorities for national development and business sectoral priorities, which can only be achieved through partnership and collaboration with the government and other stakeholders.