Why Kenya’s Sh3 billion industrial centres have failed to take off

Jukwaa

📋 Breaking It Down

Only 152 of the 235 Constituency Industrial Development Centres (CIDCs) built by the national government at a cost of Sh3 billion are fully operational, with 54 partially operational and 58 remaining idle due to funding, power, land and infrastructure challenges.

The State Department for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development has told the National Assembly Trade Committee that the centres established to provide small businesses with shared production facilities and equipment, have struggled to take off despite the government’s push to establish 290 such facilities across the country.

Principal Secretary for Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) Susan Mang’eni said the partially operational centres are not being used since they are constrained by inadequate machinery, incomplete infrastructure and lack of three-phase electricity.

📌 What You Need to Know

According to the PS, some of those that are completely non-operational are yet to secure power, have unresolved land disputes or have been affected by vandalism and poor access.

“The operationalisation of all the 290 CIDCs is a progressive undertaking contingent upon sustained budgetary support, availability of land and the resolution of site-specific challenges,” Ms Mang’eni told the committee.

As a result, all the centres have struggled to operate and attract business. The scale of the investment behind the centres has also raised questions over the value of infrastructure that remains idle.

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In the three financial years to 2022, the government said it had invested more than Sh1.3 billion in infrastructure, equipment, electricity connections and water for more than 150 centres.

The programme was allocated another Sh326 million in 2024-25, although this reduced to Sh108.8 million in the 2025-26 financial year. A 2025 Parliamentary Budget Office document also proposed Sh600 million to accelerate completion of the 290 CIDCs

📰 Source: Nation Africa

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