How to translate mega investments into jobs

 

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s last outing in China yielded Sh17.5b in concessional loans for construction of a data centre in Konza City (in addition to a “smart city” and surveillance systems). Much coverage of this project has been drowned out by the kerfuffle over why former Prime Minister Raila Odinga accompanied Kenyatta to China and the failure to secure funding for the Naivasha-Kisumu section of the Standard Gauge Railway (was it in his capacity as an African Union Infrastructure ambassador or as Kenyatta’s side kick?) Tabling the wisdom of incurring more debt from China for now, it is important to interrogate how as a country we might leverage the planned investments in Konza City to crowd in even more gains.