Sh 1 billion to be used in planning, infrastructure, and social amenities

By Adow Jubat

GARISSA, KENYA: Kenya requires nearly sh 1 billion if she is to fully upgrade all the slums within her borders, a forum on slums upgrade has heard. 

According to Ms Pauline Mbote, the deputy director of the slum upgrading programme at the ministry of housing, the money would be used to upgrade the planning, infrastructure and social amenities in all the slum areas around the country. 

Mbote, who was speaking at a consultation forum on slum upgrading at a Garissa hotel over the weekend however cautioned against ‘throwing money at the problem’ saying that in order for the slums upgrade to be achieved, it required well coordinated efforts from all stakeholders in order to ensure the gains made were sustained. 

She further called for a review of the existing framework to ensure that all persons and organisations involved in the slum upgrading programme were working in consultation and were aware of what the others were doing. 

“This will greatly help in doing away with duplication of activities where someone comes and does something that another is doing or had already been done and in the process wasting valuable time and resources,” she said. 

During the event, the Garissa County deputy governor Abdullahi Hussein Ali said that the Garissa county government was in the process of formulating a master plan for Garissa town which would be merged by the national master plan once unveiled to come up with a workable master plan which would be used to transform the face of the rapidly expanding Garissa town.