Bungoma Agriculture CEC Chirasha Makanda has defended last week’s trip by MCAs to Uganda, saying the tour was noble and taken for worthy reasons.
The trip that was meant to benchmark on industrial parks and act as a bonding session for MCAs and the Executive has been criticised by residents who think it was a waste of public funds.
But while defending the trip, Makanda said the visit was organised through the Ugandan High Commissioner to Kenya.
The team left for Kampala on Wednesday and returned on Saturday morning.
Chirasa said the visit was a follow up to last year’s Tourism and Culture exchange programme in which 100 delegates from Uganda, led by the Deputy Prime Minister visited Bungoma county.
He said it was important for the MCAs to see how an industrial park is set up, is operated and contributes to socioeconomic development of a region.
“It’s shocking how our people like majoring on trivialities, chasing squirrels and missing the elephant,” Chirasa said.
The CEC said they visited two industrial parks, one in Tororo (Guangdong Free Zone of international Industrial Cooperation) and another near Kampala.
“In both cases, it was clear that industrial parks have a significant contribution to employment creation, a market for agricultural produce, taxes to the government, provision of social amenities and community and societal transformation,” he said.
He said within the industrial parks are factories making construction materials, some exported to Kenya.
“We had agricultural-based processing firms like one was milling maize while another one was processing sesame oil for export,” he said.
The CEC said the trip cost Sh15 million and not Sh48 million as reported by a section of the media.
“The budget we approved at the Cabinet was Sh15 million and not the Sh48 million in the gutter press and was partly funded by Ugandan government,” he said.
