Kiteere: The sleepy village that went to university

NAIROBI, KENYA: Five years ago, Kiteere Market in Rongo, Migori County was a low key business centre. A few retail shops dotted the remote market centre.

People only knew of a ‘silent’ college by name Moi Institute of Technology, whose students would only be seen during opening and closing days.

The students were all accommodated within the institution, so no big fuss of private developers building hostels.

Today, the place could not be any more different. In place of the former rough road is a smooth tarmac road branching from Kanga shopping centre towards Kiteere to Nyamaiya and on to Kehancha then Narok.

Concrete buildings have taken the places of mud-walled shanty shops. Today, residents pay Sh5,000 for a house where they used to pay Sh500 a month in rent five years ago.

The infrastructural settings of the former Moi Institute of Technology, which would be renamed Siala Technical Institute, have now been improved to be part of the fully-fledged higher institution of learning, Rongo University, which took over its space. That was in 2014, when the university was born.

According to Rongo MP Paul Abuor, the coming in of the university has opened up investment channels of small scale gold miners in the adjacent Kanga area.

According to the Vice Chancellor Prof Samuel Gudu, the college has a population of around 6,000 learners and there are expectations of enrolling 3,000 more in the next one year.

Rongo University attained its full status as a chattered university in 2016 after being under Moi University, Eldoret, as a constituent college for close to four years.

Ten years ago, the cost of a plot in Kiteere Market was between Sh50,000 and Sh100,000. Today, the same piece of land costs between Sh700,000 and Sh1million, depending on the location.

Mr John Okoth, an investor who bought one acre of land near the institution about 10 years ago at a cost of Sh150,000 says he has the option of selling his land at a profit or developing it. “I have received offers of up to Sh10 million to dispose of the land to an investor but I am reluctant because I know the value it holds at this moment,” Okendo says.