5,000 young people who have gone to school. They've worked hard and had no hope and chance of getting opportunities because our economy has not been creating enough jobs. But today it is a great day. And to start us off, Your Excellency, I'd like to recognize the various disciplines of interns that we have onboarded today. Please stand up if you are in that discipline. Your Excellency, you can look at them. Out of the 5,000 that we hired, we have got 240 architects, 52 architectural assistants, 366 civil engineers, and 52 construction management. Thank you very much and welcome to the State House.
The next lot is electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, quantity surveying, quantity surveying assistant. Kindly stand up. Your Excellency, we have 359 electrical engineers, 254 mechanical engineers, 257 quantity surveyors, 63 quantity surveying assistants. Thank you very much and welcome.
The next slot, I have structural assistants. Where are the structural assistants? Kindly stand up. And that's 346 structural engineering assistants. Where are they seated? Okay. Then Your Excellency, we have other disciplines that are supporting the program. We have got environmental practitioners, geo information, health and safety, interior design, land surveying. Where are you? Kindly stand up. If I have mentioned your discipline, they're all seated around this side. Thank you very much. And that's quite a huge number. Then I have landscape architects. I have realtors. These are the people who are going to help us in selling these units. Valuers, social development, and urban and regional planning. If I have mentioned, please stand up. Okay, there they are. Quite a huge number.
Then Your Excellency, we have got young people who are going to help us in communication because this program is touching many lives but often we find ourselves unable to communicate effectively. So we have onboarded communication and branding, digital marketing, data, and entry-level and financial analysts. Where are you? Kindly stand up. There you can see them, Your Excellency. These are the people who are going to help us in spreading the word about this program. And then I have building inspectors. And as I say that, Your Excellency, one of the things that you have told us is that there are no shortcuts in this program. And I hope the interns who are here, you understand that these structures are going to house people and we cannot afford any accidents. So please, no accidents in this program. So we have building inspectors, inspector civil engineering, inspector electrical. Kindly stand up. You see them there at the back. Thank you very much. Then Your Excellency, we have got supporting services. We have supply chain. Imagine, Your Excellency, this program alone under one state department, I have got 1,378 contracts that we are running so we need support services. We have supply chain, we have legal, we have data science, information technology. Kindly stand up if you're in that category. Thank you so much and welcome.
Then we have got a new utility, and that utility, Your Excellency, is gas. We all know that this affordable housing program, we are reticulating gas to the unit. So we have got gas inspectors and then we have inspectors for plumbing and drainage. We have economists, we have actuaries, we have HR, we have gender and development studies, and we have got property managers. Kindly stand up if you're in that category. Thank you very much. They are all seated here. Your Excellency, you can see them. Thank you very much. Now, Your Excellency, allow me to recognize that these interns are going to work in live projects and those projects have been awarded to contractors. And I was looking at my list, Your Excellency, we have got over 800 contractors that we have onboarded through this program. And Your Excellency, what is so satisfying is that out of those over 800 contractors, we only have one foreign contractor. So the rest are all local. And Your Excellency, that is very important because even those foreign contractors that are coming here, they became big because there was an opportunity that was created. There was a midwifing process that went on and today they've become international contractors. We believe through this program our local contractors will graduate to becoming international contractors. So allow me to ask all our contractors wherever you are, kindly stand up. All the contractors, they are seated all over the place. Your Excellency, they're representing over the 800 contractors in this space.
Then Your Excellency, we onboarded a very special group that you actually helped to negotiate even the fees. These are our consultants. Now these interns, Your Excellency, are not going to be employed in our offices. They are being employed by our consultants with our support. And these consultants, Your Excellency, are classified in what is called a consortia, and one consortia has seven different firms and we have got 35 consortia. So if you do your maths, we have got over 300 consulting firms through this program that have been given an opportunity and today they're extending that opportunity to the graduates and the interns. So allow me to ask these consultants who've really worked hard to kindly stand up. All the consultants, they're seated all over the place. Thank you very much, representing the various consulting firms.
Your Excellency, allow me then to recognize these interns will be paid through our housing board and this board has been very special. So Jerry, the chairman, and your board members, kindly stand up so that we can recognize you. Thank you very much. That's a board of affordable housing. And then we also have our National Housing Corporation board that is here that is working with us as one of the implementing agents. National Housing Corporation board, kindly stand up. Thank you very much. Thank you, Your Excellency. I also have a very special mention to Safaricom. When you met the CEO in December as we were handing over Mukuru, they had a passion to support the interns and today they have said that all the airtime that will be used by the interns to communicate, the data they're picking, that Safaricom is going to pay for it. And today I have Sylvia, I don't know where she is. Yes, Sylvia is our director. Thank you so much, Sylvia, and Safaricom for not tiring in supporting the government agenda. And Your Excellency, they are also considering giving the interns a tablet so that you have data. So Your Excellency, because we have the main course coming up, allow me just to recognize my colleague PSs who have come here. Kindly stand up. I'm not going to mention you by name. Kindly stand up. Thank you very much. PSs, and Your Excellency, you can sit. This work including the legislative framework for the affordable housing program would not have happened if we did not have a very supportive committee. So allow me to ask my committee led by our chairman John Ng'eno and the rest of the team kindly stand up so that we can recognize you. Thank you so much, Your Excellency. This team has given us a lot of support and we truly appreciate it. So Your Excellency, allow me at this juncture to invite my Cabinet Secretary to come and make some opening remarks and we can take the program forward. Asante sana, God bless you and thank you.
Let's also give a clap for my Principal Secretary Charles Hinga as he sits down.
Your Excellency, this is your meeting this morning to meet with the interns. But let me recognize your presence here and this invitation allowing time for us to come here. Your Excellency the Deputy President, I think all protocols settled and mentioned, I want to adhere to that in the interest of time. Your Excellency, today we present a new picture to the country. This new picture, Your Excellency, is that we have been working with the professionals. But today, 5,500 interns are here in State House to tell you that we have actually commissioned them. That without this presence, Your Excellency, the people out there may not understand the entire space. Your Excellency, the picture that has been coming is for our project sites where our critical workers are the masons. That is what people see. The artisans in each project site currently standing at over 320,000. Without this team here, Your Excellency, we know that these are professionals in their own right. Your Excellency, we want to thank you because the idea to bring this team on board was actually your idea. We were working with them. But for the interns who need professional experience, work experience, Your Excellency, we are grateful that we were also able through the consultants to come up with a package so that they have their allowances without challenges. Your Excellency, the work is a lot. We have more out there. This is a program, a program that with your permission, Your Excellency, should run every year because they will be out there for 12 months and we know with experience because each one of them will be in charge of a specific block, specific work that then they can be able to be given accurate recognition for the experience they have gathered. You know, you met some of them in Yeri. So they are already in their sites. They know where their workplace is. And we are very happy with the enthusiasm, the energy, the youthfulness that they have taken up their work or their duties. Your Excellency, with them of course the consultants, our teams in the ministry, Your Excellency, are there to give the necessary guidance. I don't want to add beyond that but let me as the Cabinet Secretary recognize the input of the Department for State for Housing and Urban Development and Physical Planning in this exercise in terms of our work. I want to recognize Joy Arum also, yes, PS Nixon, Joel Aruog is here and of course with Hinga, they are working very well to ensure their contribution in terms of seamless implementation is available. I want to recognize the Cabinet Secretary... contract end up at the AG's office and SG is here I think on behalf of that office. Let me not go beyond that. Your Excellency, my role was actually to... allow me, Your Excellency, and you'll forgive me for saying this, before we were talking about construction. The blocks were on the ground floors. Now all majority of our projects over 250 sites, the blocks are up. Those people who did not believe that the affordable housing program is on course, is being implemented, they have criticized. Now we don't want to ask them to see. We want to because they couldn't see. Now they can see. If they don't believe, they can now go and touch. The blocks are up. We are relentless, Your Excellency. We will close our ears. We will open our eyes. We shall remain focused to assist you in ensuring that this program is one of the most successful programs that your government will be able to deliver to the people of Kenya. Your Excellency, let me now invite His Excellency Professor Kithure Kindiki and allow me to say, fire.
Good morning. Fire. Allow me just to mention the members of parliament who are here who are members of the departmental committee on housing because they have been very supportive of this program. The Honorable John Ng'eno is the chairperson of that committee and is also the member of parliament for Molo in Nakuru County. The Honorable Joseph Cherotich, member of the committee and member of parliament for Kipkelion East. The Honorable Esther Passaris, member of the committee and she is the woman rep for Nairobi County. The Honorable Jane Kagiri, MP, member of the committee and woman rep for Laikipia County. The Honorable Kakai Bisau, member of the committee, MP and the member of parliament for Kiminini in Trans Nzoia. The Honorable Sid, member of the committee, MP, member of parliament for Garsen in Tana River. The Honorable Khalid Mule, MP, Member of the Committee, MP for Machakos Town. The Honorable Daniel Manduku, MP, member of the committee, and I think he's the member of parliament for Nyaribari Masaba.
Your Excellency, allow me to say two things before I invite you. When you assumed office as President of Kenya in 2022, you made it clear that for our country to achieve economic transformation, we needed first to stabilize the macroeconomic fundamentals of our country which is the foundation upon which economic activity is built. If you have a country with a weak currency or a volatile currency, with high interest rates, with high inflation rates, without enough foreign exchange reserves, it doesn't matter what you do in what sector, the economy will not do well because of what we call the macroeconomic environment. And for the first two years of your administration, Mr. President, you worked very hard and we are now having a fairly stable macroeconomic environment in our country. The interest rates are coming down. Inflation has come down. The currency has been stable for some time and we have the highest ever foreign exchange reserves in the history of our country. Your Excellency, the third and fourth year and this is where we are now. You've been leading us now to move into building on the macroeconomic stability to create microeconomic progress, job creation and expanding the economy to provide enough jobs and income opportunities for individuals and also increasing household incomes. And Your Excellency, we are right on course under your leadership and that underpins why we are gathered here today because every opportunity given to a Kenyan in terms of a job, in terms of an income opportunity helps us build and move closer to the realization of the bottom-up economic transformation agenda of our country and it helps us realize the vision of getting Kenya from where we are today in the third world to the first world economic status. Therefore, Your Excellency, these interns, 5,500 of them are part of the many other initiatives the administration that you lead is creating for young people and for Kenyans in terms of jobs and income opportunities. And today I am a very proud member of the government that you lead even as we celebrate this milestone. The last thing I want to say, Your Excellency the President, is this housing program being one of the flagship programs of this administration, as the minister has said, is now picking off and the consequences and the effects and the impact of this program are beginning to get seen and get felt. And therefore the public housing program, this housing program is going to be the driver of the housing sector even as private sector supplements the housing needs of the people of Kenya. Your Excellency, so far so well. So far so good. We must continue firming up on the professional standards and quality control systems that are in place to make sure that the houses that are being built are safe in the long term for the people of Kenya. And Your Excellency, we must start thinking through how, working with the professional bodies that regulate some of the professions that are in the built environment, how going forward we must introduce and implement consequence management for professionals who under their watch they make decisions which decisions end up having the kind of situations we had two months ago when we had a building, of course not part of this program, that had collapsed somewhere in Nairobi. There must be consequences for all professionals as well as all the agencies involved whether they are agencies of county government or national government. It must mean something for you to be a professional and under your watch or through a decision you have taken to approve something, something happens that affects the safety and well-being of the people of Kenya. I charge you interns to work with the consultants and your seniors in the profession to help us have very good outcomes of these programs and other programs in the built environment. Mr. President, you've done us proud. You continue shaping and improving the vision of a better Kenya, a more prosperous Kenya, a more inclusive Kenya. We will support you and I want to congratulate you for the milestone that we are here to celebrate today. Our interns, without this opportunity... Your Excellency, what Kenyans require is an opportunity to get started and they'll be able now to use that network to build on their future. Our interns... fire.
Good morning everybody. Hamjambo, you can take your seats. Mr. Deputy President, all the other leaders present here, members of consulting firms, our construction companies and the people of the moment, interns in the construction industry. Everybody, I want to welcome you this morning to this very important occasion. I am very happy truly that we are having this meeting. When I see the men and women here, professionals from the construction industry, professionals who are planners, surveyors, quantity surveyors, engineers, whether they are electrical engineers, they are mechanical engineers, structural engineers, people who work in the ICT space and the host of professionals that are represented here today. I am very proud that indeed the housing program is maturing and we have professionals, we have workers, we have companies, we have consulting firms in the equation. And let me begin first by saying that this moment is a very consequential moment so to speak, very consequential because our country Kenya, I remember when we went out for the campaigns, one of the single most asked matter by citizens was the millions of young people who get out of school, get out of college, get out of universities and there isn't a concrete plan on how and where they are going to work. And it was one of the issues that has always been discussed in this country. And therefore we set out to have a conversation and we set out to have a plan and we put our ideas together and we rolled it into a manifesto. And today, this is one of the meetings that confirms that the manifesto was not a piece of paper, that the manifesto was not a newspaper, that it was about a plan about real issues affecting real people.
My very able deputy has told you that we had to set the base. We had to put together the foundation upon which we were going to run all our other programs. And that foundation was the soundness of our economy. I know the conversation about the economy sometimes looks too lofty and sometimes in very strange figures and language about inflation, about GDP and all the other things. But let me just put it simply that we had a very serious challenge as a country in 2022. Of the five countries in Africa that everybody believed globally that they were going to default on their foreign financial obligations, Kenya was among them because we had the largest Eurobond debt of $2 billion. And so everybody expected that Kenya was going to default. And indeed of the five countries that everybody expected to default, four defaulted, Kenya did not. Yes. And I say so proudly because it is us, the people of Kenya. It is the government of Kenya. It is the professionals that we have in this country that we sat together, figured out, eliminated what was not necessary, removed unnecessary subsidies in fuel, in URA, in all manner of places, cut down on expenditure. I remember we had to reduce the budget. We went to parliament. We reduced the budget by 300 billion Kenya shillings. And it was tough, you know, but those decisions we made, difficult as they may have been, necessary because they were, made our country escape the shame of defaulting on our foreign obligations. We have since built a firmer foundation. We have made the necessary decisions. Today I can confidently stand before this gathering and before the people of Kenya that our economy is way different from what it was in 2022. Inflation has come down from 9.6% to 4.5%. Our dollar exchange rate that had gone all the way to 165, today it is 129 and coming down. Just watch this space in the coming months. Our foreign exchange reserves that had come down to almost two and a half months of import cover, about $7 billion. Today, our foreign exchange reserves has risen to 12.3 billion dollars, the highest in Kenya's history. These are numbers that I am not telling you. These are numbers that are available in any financial metrics. Our economy has grown and now we have overtaken Ethiopia. We have overtaken Angola. We are now the sixth largest economy in Africa. That is Kenya by the way just in case you are wondering which country I'm talking about. Yes, that is Kenya. The one that I hear some politicians say is a failed state. I think the failure is not in Kenya. The failure is in their small minds.
And upon that foundation we have built the rest of the plan. We have built the rest of the plan. And because I am talking to interns, I am talking to people who've just gotten out of college, out of university. We all know that any country that has made any meaningful development, they have done so by building their human capital. Education is significant and that is why today as I talk to these interns, we are giving them an opportunity for you to go and experience in life infrastructure projects, not in simulated environments, in life. What you have learned and to sharpen the skills that you have learned and to actualize some of the things that you learned in classroom. We have also equally rolled out a whole plan on how to make our education relevant to the requirements of today and the future. We have increased the budget by significant amount from 500 billion in 2022. This year these members of parliament will tell you we have a budget of 720 billion for our education sector. Why are we doing that? Because education is important. I see some people try to talk about education and I want to tell them in 2022 we had huge challenges in the education sector. We had a chronic shortage of teachers. We had a chronic shortage of classrooms. 21 of our universities were technically insolvent because of funding challenges. Most of our TVETs had serious problems because of funding. I stand here today to tell you that we have sorted out all those issues. Number one, we have hired as of this January 100,000 teachers in the last 3 years. No other administration in Kenya's history has done so. We have built 23,000 classrooms and we have provided resources under our new student-centered model that does not give money to a university. It makes sure that every student is assessed as a student. And we give them scholarships on the basis of need and merit. And ask any vice chancellor today, ask any vice chancellor, they will tell you they can now pay salaries, they can pay their suppliers, they can even pay taxes. And the universities are getting out of insolvency. That is important. We have presided over two very important transitions when we set up the competence-based education which I believe in 100%. Because we must reform our education so that it is in tandem with the requirements of the future. And when we designed the competence-based education, it was supposed to make sure that education does not just be about formal learning and passing exams and that kind of thing. It was about transferring skills, creating knowledge and making sure that we prepare our human capital for what is right and what is necessary for us to move Kenya to the next level. Today exams have ceased being a life and death sentence. You accumulate part of your final result over time. Exams today only account for 60%, 40% everything else accounts for it. There was a time exams were managed by the police because it was life and death. We have removed the police from managing exams. Exams is part of learning, must not be a life and death issue. So and I am saying we have presided over two transitions from primary school to junior school and this month from junior school to secondary school. And I did say yesterday that no child should be denied an opportunity to be in class. Why? Because we have provided the resources for them to be taught for the first time in our schools. Capitation that normally gets to schools a month or two after schools open, we made sure that capitation was available in school before our students reported in class. And we provided the highest amount, 44 billion. And therefore, if we have provided money for teaching and we pay the teachers and we have the classrooms, there is absolutely no reason why anybody would keep our children out of school. And we have said we are going to look into this uniform issue because uniforms are beginning to be another source of corruption. Some schools charge as high as 38,000 for uniforms. You know and therefore I have directed that there is no child who will be kept out of class because of uniform. Even if they have the uniform for the junior school they can transition to secondary school without uniform as they wait for the parents to organize themselves. So we are going to work with all the stakeholders, the other stakeholders to agree so that we don't erect additional impediment to access to education. And that brings me to this meeting. Why are we here? We are here because the people of Kenya told us that among the most serious challenges we have as a nation in every home there is a child who has finished form four or college or university and yet they don't have a job. And because we spend 700 billion shillings every year on education, we must equally think on what happens when the pipeline through education gets out. What do they do? And that is why we designed a concrete, practical, intentional, deliberate program on how to create jobs in Kenya. We have a program running today which we are calling export of labor. And when I talk about export of labor, I am not talking about brain drain. I am talking about Kenyans who go to work abroad for 2, 3 years, gain a different experience and bring it back home and use it to develop our own country. We have 530,000 young people who have gone from Kenya to different parts of the world. Today they are monetizing their knowledge, their skills, their expertise, their talents and our remittances in Kenya has gone up by a billion dollars, $1 billion. It was 3.8 billion in 2022. Today it is $5.2 billion every year. We have a whole ecosystem that we are building in what we call the digital jobs space. We have spreading our fiber optic across Kenya. We've done 30,000 kilometers. We want to do 100,000 kilometers. We've gotten better engagement with business process outsourcing companies. Teleperformance for example, the largest BPO in the world has set up office in Kenya. CCI and other companies in the BPO space are engaging Kenyans working in foreign companies but working from Kenya. We have ICT hubs that we are building around the country. We have gig centers that are rolled out around the country. In every TVET we have made sure that there is an ICT hub and today we have 300,000 Kenyans working in the digital space earning money in dollars and working from home in foreign companies. Deliberate, intentional. And then we have public infrastructure. And that's why we are here today, public infrastructure. And let me tell you, creating opportunities for employment using public infrastructure is not a new invention. You know it is what is tested and tried globally. America, for example, in the 50s, for those of you who follow history, in the 1950s, the interstate highways that were built to get America out of recession created millions of jobs. It was intentional. If you go to Europe, if you go to Germany for example, to get Germany out of recession, the autobahn industry was created to deal with roads, bridges, highways and created millions of jobs. Recently in Philippines what they called Build, Build, Build, again just recently 2016 to 2022, Philippines created 6 and a half million jobs using investment in public infrastructure. So what we are doing in Kenya is not an invention. It is what is tested, what is tried and what works. When we rolled out this housing program, it wasn't a new thing. National Housing Corporation was registered in 1953, I'm told by the chair there, almost earlier than South Korea and Singapore registered theirs, right? But we have been, you know, battling with what do we do with it? How do we do it? It was there. We went to slum upgrading. It was there in the manifesto of every political party. For the last 30 years, housing has been a permanent feature in every political party's manifesto. In fact, in the last election, housing was in the manifesto of Kenya Kwanza and was in the manifesto of Azimio, right? But when it came to implementation, my friends, politics took center stage. Oh, Zakayo, that's how I became Zakayo. All right, never mind. At least today we have close to 6,000 people here. Professionals, engineers, planners, surveying engineers, you know, electrical engineers, structural engineers, civil engineers and a host of many other trades. Painters, carpenters, masons, electricians, name them. We have a whole ecosystem of people, professionals who work now in our construction industry, building houses, building markets, building hostels and the face and skyline of Kenya is changing. Yes, it is changing. Yes, it is changing. Go to anywhere, go to any big town, the face and skyline of Kenya is changing. And that is why I want to persuade you and I am very very very proud of this moment that Kenya is finally doing what is right. We are finally taking charge of our own destiny and changing our country for the better. Yes. You guys will be working in real, live infrastructure projects either in a market or in a hostel or in a housing program. You will be there and you will experience firsthand that Kenya is changing and you will help us. Your knowledge, your skills, your expertise is going to contribute to making sure that those projects are world-class standards. They are efficiently delivered. They are professionally handled and they are safe for our markets and hostels for our students and houses for the people of Kenya. So I am really really proud of this moment that we finally are believing in ourselves. You know for a very long time politics has sabotaged our country. Negativity, believing in others more than we believe in ourselves and speaking negative things about our country, believing that nothing can happen. You know, I've come a long way. Many people were saying, 'Oh, this gentleman is lying to us.' Oh, fertilizer was 7,000. He's saying he's lying to us. Today, it's 2,500. It's real. Oh, he was going to hire teachers. We have hired 100,000 teachers. It is real. Oh, SHA is real. 28 million people are registered today in SHA and SHA is working. Oh, I don't know. The economy is not telling us the truth. Today, the numbers don't lie. Oh, affordable housing fund is a slush fund. They are going to steal all the money. Oh, you know William Ruto is the one supplying cement. I don't know. He's supplying steel. Nonsense. Today the houses are there. They are staring at these people. Stubborn as always. So good people, let us believe in ourselves. Let's believe in our country as we believe in God. Because this country is going to be changed by us. And therefore I charge you young people. I say so because I'm old enough to be your father. How many of you are what? 30s? Less. Yeah. Anybody who is below 35 is old enough to be my charge. So I want to charge you, the housing program today we have signed contracts for 600 billion. How much? And this is our money. We didn't borrow it from the IMF. We didn't go to the World Bank. We didn't go nowhere. This is our money. We are using our money. We are engaging our companies, Kenyan companies. We are engaging Kenya's consulting firms, professionals. We are using our raw materials and the young people of Kenya including the interns who are here are at it transforming our nation. It tells you there is nothing that we cannot do if we believe in ourselves and if we provide the right leadership. If I was a coward, this project would not have happened. This project would not be there. We would not be having this conversation with these many young people. So let me ask you as I finish and to thank many people who believed in Kenya, many public servants, public officers, working Kenyans who contributed to the housing fund. They are the heroes of this program. They are the ones who have made this program what it is. And I want to encourage them that every cent that they have contributed to the housing fund, I take full responsibility that it must be put to good use and it must develop the houses, the markets, the hostels, money that was meant for it. I must thank our professionals, consulting firms. They are great patriots. I know I haven't had a moment to say this but I will say it again. These consulting firms, our architects, our engineers, our surveyors and all the people who have made housing, markets, hostels possible. They have made a very big contribution. Just imagine their fees ordinarily would be anywhere between 8% and 12, 13, 14%. Ordinarily that's what their fees is supposed to be. I called these people. Jennifer was there right? We sat in a room there called Number Six and I told them listen, you know this is our country let's believe in ourselves you people, you do one house here one house there one bungalow flat there we want to give you scale. Let us negotiate the fees. Do you know how much we pay them today? Instead of 14% or 10%, we only pay them 2%. And they have done a wonderful job. They've done a wonderful job. When I write my book finally about this housing, these consulting firms will have two chapters. They have made a huge contribution. I recognize that. I really do. I recognize that that you believed in this country and you said we also want to make a contribution as professionals. And today as I roll out this program of interns we are going to pay a small stipend to these interns. Yeah. And I want to say as we pay a small stipend to these interns to help them to learn and help us supervise the sites. They will be working under the consulting firms. They will be literally part of your labor force. So we have consulted. I did ask the ministry to give me some numbers and we have agreed that for the sacrifice you have shown as consulting firms we are going to increase what we are paying you from 2% to 3%. But you're also going to give back something small. These people, these young people, we are paying them a small stipend from our side. Consider also to pay them a small stipend. I am not going to give you any figure. You people go and decide. These are people who will be working in your offices. They will be helping you supervise your sites. Just be considerate and see how you can because much as they want to learn, they need to go home, come back, pay rent a bit here and there and survive. Yeah. Are we together? So let me say this, you know I really must thank these people. Let me also thank our contractors. You know when we say that we believe in ourselves. I did ask the ministry when we rolled out this program. It would have been easy for us to bring in the Chinese and tell them okay you know that you have the muscle you can build for us faster blah blah blah. But we said this program must also provide an opportunity for us to grow Kenyan construction companies. This is also their moment. As we believe in ourselves, we must also believe in them. And I must congratulate Kenyan construction companies. 95% of those companies have been exceptional. They've done their job well. In fact, I have been wondering why ordinarily you'd go to a place and they will tell you, people will tell you, 'No, no, we don't want this company. Bring us the Chinese. They are efficient, they are faster.' But today you have heard here out of 800 companies, construction companies, only one is foreign. The rest are Kenyan. So we are also building corporations of tomorrow. These construction companies we are building here today tomorrow they are going to work in the region and they are going to work globally and so are the consulting firms. The consulting firms will have behind them a track record of what they have done and when they apply for the next contract they can list a retinue of projects they have supervised and I am confident that they will access regional projects, global projects as we develop all our other sectors. Let me conclude by saying this. The construction industry that I speak to here today is just two years old. We have 240,000 housing projects. Some towards completion, some halfway, some in different categories. We have 400 modern markets being built across Kenya. We have hostels for 182,000 students in universities, TVETs, Kenya medical training centers and in other colleges under construction. As I have told you, we have contracts of 600 billion Kenyan shillings. We have 500,000 Kenyans working. We have professionals from different fields working and this program is just started. It's just started. We are going to be here in this construction space for the next 25 to 30 years. So prepare yourselves. Yeah. And for you guys, this is a launch pad. It is not a stop gap. This internship. Do you understand what I'm saying? It depends on what you do with this moment. It depends on what you do with this moment. This moment, the opportunity you have to be an intern will make you either the next professional to work in the next consulting firm to start your own... the future is yours to decide what you do with this moment. All right. I was told the dream is free, the hustle is not. So you guys, you have a moment of history in your hands. All of us as a country, we have a moment of history in our hands. And we are not just talking about this construction space around housing markets. You've heard me. I have said recently in the state of the nation address towards the end of last year that we are now scaling up. Kenya for the next 20, 25 years maybe 30 years is going to be literally a construction site. The whole country right from State House here you can see it is a construction site. Yes. And to every part of Kenya, we are rolling out. Beginning this year already, we have 6,000 kilometers of road going on now, which we are finalizing. We are designing another 2,500 kilometers of highways. Weii Ma Summit is just the beginning. I have said we are rolling out Makutano, Embu all the way to Meru. We are rolling out Nakuru through Naivasha to Limuru as a dual carriageway. We are taking from Ma Summit all the way through Kericho to Kisumu to Malaba and from there to Nakuru to Eldoret to Malaba. We are doing... you have a list of where we are going and we are doing another 28,000 kilometers of tarmac. Listen, it looks a bit crazy. We have built 20,000 kilometers of tarmac for 60 years. In the next 7 years, we want to build 28,000 kilometers.
And it's going to happen just as you see in our lifetime. We're going to do it. We must do another, and I'm talking about construction to get our country moving. We're going to do as I have said: 50 new mega dams, 200 medium-sized dams, and thousands of small dams across the country. We are going to do another 10,000 megawatts of energy. And for your information, we have the money to do it.
I know you don't believe me. We have money to do it. Money is not the problem. The people, these professionals, you know the problem. Look at these companies. Many people, if you told them we're going to build all these houses... Today we have 800 companies, Kenyan companies, doing this job. They have signed 600 billion shillings of projects and they are doing them high-rise. If you go to Kisumu, go to Migori, go to Kakamega, go to Bungoma, come to Eldoret, come to Nakuru, wherever, all those houses are built by Kenyan companies. We have what it takes to transform our country, and we have started the process of raising the money to do it. I said 5 trillion. Yes, we have the means to raise 5 trillion. By next year we will have raised all the 5 trillion.
This is not about politics. This is not about the next election. This is about transforming Kenya. You know, and I want to ask some politicians. The other day we all agreed that divesting, privatization, is a prudent way of raising resources. When we went to the market, today we are in the market on the Kenya Pipeline IPO. It's going to democratize the ownership of a public asset like Kenya Pipeline. Today, you as an intern, you can buy shares in Kenya Pipeline. And I want to ask you, I want to ask every Kenyan: with only 900 shillings you can buy 100 shares of Kenya Pipeline, and you can continue and buy more and buy more and buy more. Let us all own a piece of the good that we have built together.
But you will hear some people saying, 'Why are you doing this? This is wrong.' The same people who told us, who agreed with us, 'Let's do it.' We're saying we're divesting a portion of Safaricom to raise money. They tell us, 'Oh, who negotiated? Where is the committee that negotiated for the price of the shares?' Really? Any publicly listed company, the tested, proven, transparent valuation is done by the capital markets, is done at the exchange. It's not done in boardrooms or by committees. So I want to tell those people who are giving us lectures about what we are doing with the IPO on Kenya Pipeline or Safaricom: they should spare us their political conmanship and intellectual deceit. We don't need it. We want to move the country forward.
In the next one month, we are going to raise 110 billion shillings with the Kenya Pipeline IPO. We're going to raise another 240 billion, maybe, or thereabout, with a divestment from Safaricom. That is 350 billion Kenya shillings. With 350 billion, we are going to leverage, and we will have between three and a half and 4 trillion shillings to be able to run all our projects.
Yes, that's what is required. For a very long time, you know, politics has sabotaged our development. Small-time politics, you know, and that's why I tell these people: we are going to change Kenya in our lifetime. When I talk about moving Kenya from the third world to a first world, I mean it. And it is going to happen right before our eyes. It is going to happen. So believe in yourselves and let us believe in our country as we believe in God. Nothing is impossible. We are going to change this country. Kenya is moving from third world to first world by all means possible in our lifetime.
I can go on, but let me stop there. Thank you very much for listening to me.
Wonderful. Wonderful. Another round of applause for His Excellency. I'll request that we kindly take our seats. Let's take our seats. Your Excellency, with your permission, we'll now transition to the panel discussion. Our first panel discussion is women in construction. It has been long said that it's a male-dominated industry, but through the affordable housing, there is proof that this norm has been broken, and as a result, we have very many women in construction. This session is going to be moderated by the PS Housing. So as we put this together, let's put our hands together as we welcome Pier Hinga, who is briefly going to give us the bios of the contractors who he's going to be having this discussion with, together with His Excellency. Karibu.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency. Without further ado, allow me to invite our first panelist. And as Michael has said, Your Excellency, we have our women in construction. And as I come, allow me to say something that has been really remarkable about our women in construction. Your Excellency, the best-performing sites in the housing are being undertaken by women. And I'd like to ask two of the best-performing contractors to come and join us here on stage. We have Emilda and Modo, who are really shining in this men's world. Karibuni. I also have Amina H. Amina, kindly come on stage. She's assisting us in construction of markets. I also have Anjero. Where is Anjero? Karibu. I also have a contractor, come engineer, one of the finest from the lakeside, Lilian Karibusana. She's doing an amazing job in our western side of the country. I have also Anastasia. Karibu. And I have Margaret Muende. Karibu. And then I'll also ask your friend Jennifer, Your Excellency, to come and sit next to you. She's a tough negotiator, but I think you are a bit tougher than her. But I'd like to ask Jennifer, who negotiated for the consultants, to come and sit right there next to His Excellency. And ladies and gentlemen, allow me now to invite His Excellency the President to come and join the panel.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency. This is a conversation with these wonderful ladies that represent a universe of well-performing contractors in the country. So, because it's a conversation between them and yourselves, I just want to ask each one of them to introduce themselves, what they are doing, and give us a snapshot of your experiences of this program, what this program has meant to you in your sector, and compare and contrast where you were, where you had irregular opportunities, and now you have got the big opportunities. So allow me to start from that side, and then we will pick up the conversation with His Excellency. Kindly introduce yourself.
My name is Margaret Muende from Kitui. I was doing ESP market, and it is already completed. Thank you, sir.
My name is Amina Abdul Ali. I'm a contractor. I completed Kangetta market and Adu market. Right now I'm doing Gummen and Kina market. Although Kina market, we have some challenges here and there because of the land; we don't have up to now the land to build the market. I got an award for CEU work also for Mandera, Mabit, Embu, Zakani, and Isiolo County. Thank you.
Your Excellency, my name is Emilda Muto, and I'm a contractor. I currently finished Bumala market and am starting Bal Market, all in Western. I would like to first of all thank you so much for the opportunities that we've gotten as women. This was not possible before, but now we are getting a lot of support and we are being believed in to do this work. And we would just like to say that, first of all, that's a good thing. Beyond this, I would like to say that I am very pleased because when you came to Bumala, your word was, 'You people support this young lady. She's here to work.' And I got a lot of support, and I'm hoping to get more support as we go forward. Thank you very much.
Your Excellency, my name is Jennifer Musimi, formerly the president of AUSK, very instrumental in creating this program. We sat with you. We negotiated well, and we did a very good job, a good thing to provide job opportunities and an opportunity for the professionals in the built environment to trade with the government after a very long time. And they can attest that they've handled projects of values they've never handled since inception, to the 10 billions, and it's going on. We are employing now interns and many assistants in our firms in a way that even when I left university and started my firm, we could never have done. It's a very transformative thing we did. It's very enlightening. It's growing everyone. And I want to thank you for supporting us. Thank you.
I can hand over to His Excellency the President. That is Home Fish Market. I am now doing South B, and most probably, Your Excellency, you are welcome to pick the keys by March. And I am also encapsulating... paid well after working so hard for me for it to work well. I am doing a 24-hour economy. That's why we can work within... if we are given two years, we do it in half the timing. So I encourage my fellow contractors, let us practice this 24-hour economy so that we may win our president a two-term without negotiation. Thank you.
Thank you, Your Excellency. My name is Lilian Oumbo. I'm an engineer by profession. I'm a civil and structural engineer and also a contractor. We've just finished three markets, and we were very honored that you visited one of our markets. We did not disappoint.
Yes. In Ora. So we are just about to hand over the markets. We are on our last one in Migori and about to start an affordable housing project also in Migori County called Doda. And I think this opportunity, first and foremost, as a woman, as a Kenyan, has really encouraged us. We've been able to expand our portfolio. We are now looking at even taking on more challenging projects. And I'm glad that we are starting on the affordable housing. We also have the student hostel in Homa Bay, KMTC, that we are yet to start. So we've really believed in ourselves. And for the first time, actually, I was looking at the opportunities across the region. I mean, that's how much you've really transformed who we are. And giving the State Department for Housing their flowers, I think they've really, really supported us financially. Because sometimes when you're taking on government projects, people are like, 'Are you going to be paid?' I think this is one program that you don't even follow up your payments. You call for inspection, they show up, you raise your certificates, and you really don't have to queue in any office. The next thing you see is that the bank is sending you a SMS message that you've been paid. And so we give them their applause and we appreciate. Thank you.
My name is Anjero, and I am a contractor. I am pleased and very proud to be part of this affordable housing construction. I have a site in Nairobi, in Kasarani, Kamiti, and Kida Phase Three. Wow. It was very difficult to believe in myself that I am able to deliver this project, but with the support that we get from the PS, it is amazing. We get paid. We even hold seminars that encourage us to soldier on, and we are delivering on our projects. In Tam, we are on time. Kasarani and Kida, we are very, very proud as women to participate in this space.
Thank you, Your Excellency. Maybe I invite you now and just have a conversation with this wonderful...
Thank you very much, PS. I'm really proud that I'm sitting in the midst of women contractors. You know, and I have been to the sites they have mentioned. I have been to Kangetta, I have been to Bumala, and congratulations for doing a great job in Bumala. I don't know, did the traders move in?
Not yet. For commissioning? I'll find my way there, or I'll send firemen here to come and do the... Yeah. So, looking at these great ladies, and you have heard them, they have two, three sites. Some of the sites they have finished, they have moved on from doing a market, they've now moved on to affordable housing. Let me ask... and you've talked about Kida. Kida is in my hometown. Are you doing the market or the affordable housing?
I'm doing affordable housing.
Is it Phase One? I know there is Phase One and Phase Two.
Phase Three. You're doing Phase Two. How many units are you doing in Phase Two? I know Phase One was like 200, was it?
200. Yes. Phase Two is 1,800.
1,800. I mean, and you're that serious. What is the size of the project in terms of quantum? What is the contract value?
5.3 million shillings or...?
Billion. Wow. How far are you now in terms of percentage of construction? Are you on time?
We got challenges at first because when we got into the site, the drawings changed from 9 to 15 floors.
Oh yeah. It was actually my decision because the original design was for nine floors. But when we assessed the place, we said we could go to 15 floors.
15 floors. Yeah. So you had to readjust the contract. That is what delayed us. And then we have finished the rafting. Now we are beginning.
You are beginning to do the job. I'll, when I'm in the next time, I'll pass by and see. You're welcome. Yeah. So, thank you very much. So, how is the transition, Lilian? You've told me you did the market in Ora, and then you're now moving to the affordable housing.
Affordable housing. Yes. Of course, initially, just as I said when we started on the markets, we wanted to look at how we could deliver that. I think now in the transition, we had a bit of challenges on the side, but we are ready to take up the challenge. Yes. I mean, it's exciting, I must say. Initially very scary, but we are up to the task. We've been able to tag along other women professionals. I work with quite a number of women engineers, the construction management. So we are a team of women. So as far as delivery is concerned, I don't have any doubt in my mind. Just had a few issues with the community, which has already been sorted out. So we are hitting the ground.
Yeah. Thank you. Let me ask you again, Muende. I know you have some contracts in Nairobi.
You are in South B. Okay. There is actually the MCA for South B was telling me how she's very happy with what she's seeing that is going on in South B. And South B is not an ESP market. It's a big market. What is the contract value for South B?
It's 332 million shillings.
How many people do you have working on the site?
We have like, when we are doing a concrete casting, we have 452 people. And we actually have like 12 machines, that is the mixers, the hoist, and all that. I don't use the ready mix because I'll only have that car that brings the mix and there is no workforce. So I use those people to create employment to come and cast. So generally, in a busy day, I have 452 workers, and on a normal day at night, I can have around 70 people, and by daytime, I have around 80 to 100, depending on the activities at the site.
Okay. And different stages of the construction.
Okay. Let me ask you, how are you working with the banks? What is the experience you have with your bankers?
My bank. Yeah, I bank with National Bank, and I have been given an overdraft of 35 million that I can work without minding any other thing. But I am paid on time. It's only when I have some hitches in finances. But they give me an overdraft because they know they are sure that I'll get money. Yes.
Before affordable housing, before this program, were you a contractor?
What? I have a long story, Your Excellency. Yeah. I started as a casual at site when I finished my O-level in '09, and it's a long story.
Okay. So we leave it for another day, the long story.
Yeah, I can touch some small details. Yeah, I started as a casual laborer. But because I come from a humble background, I had to start there where I saw an opportunity. From there, the boss of that company saw my efforts and she promoted me to start paying and looking for those who are not working so hard to deliver. That was in '09. I started in West Pokot, and from there I have grown. I have bought shares from the company. Now I'm a shareholder and actually a director for the company. And I'm semi-literate in terms of construction because I have not gone to any class of engineering, but I've learned through skills. And that's why I'm always inside. I know everything from electrical, plumbing, masonry, roofing, structure, design.
So they say it's a long story. Indeed. I think it is a long story, but now you are a shareholder in the company.
I'm here seated with the President because I'm a shareholder.
Great. So, thank you very much. I think when we talk about bottom-up, I think Muende here represents what bottom-up is. It's a living testimony according to her. Really, somebody who was working in a construction site today owning a construction company. That is what it takes. It takes resilience. It takes believing in yourself. It takes working hard. And that is why I said in my presentation here earlier, dreaming is free, the hustle is not. You have to wake up. You have to do what Muende has done. That's why she's sitting here today.
The great lady Jennifer sitting next to me here. Jennifer, do you remember those days?
I remember those days very well.
Yes. Long hours, many days, and a lot of negotiation. When you look back today, you know, you remember when we were talking on that table, it was far-fetched, you know, it was the usual government thing, and you guys were saying, 'Oh, you know, are these people really going to pay? Are they going to do this?' Can you tell this audience, then and now, what do you have to say?
I'm amazed by the grace of God the far we've come from. From my boardroom sitting discussing, actually it started in Naivasha, 'Can we do this? What's the right rate? 35,000 per square meter? Oh, that can afford.' And I walked from that podium and I told the VS, 'We are going to do this. Let's go and crunch the numbers.' And convincing everyone that we can do this. It's going to be an easy task for the professionals when we are going to be standardized. We're going to automate most of these things. So when we negotiate on the rate, don't worry, you will not sleep hungry. To just look around and see this group of interns is a product of that negotiation. It's phenomenal. Your Excellency, if that dream was killed, half or actually all the professionals who are doing these projects will be back in their shambas. For me, they wouldn't be busy. This program has afforded or provided opportunities for firms to be busy, for firms to renovate, to reinvent themselves, to equip their offices in such a way that they can supervise projects because we have been assigned projects all over the country, as opposed to a while back where you'll just limit yourself to Nairobi because you don't want to go to the very hardship areas. So, phenomenal is what I can say. Thank you.
So today you're telling us, the country, that people who were confined to Nairobi because they could just find a project in Nairobi, because those are where most of the people who have the means to do big projects live. Today you have projects in every part of Kenya.
We have projects in every part of Kenya.
And today you are forced to go and supervise those projects in those very remote areas, and you have a feel of the country.
Absolutely. Now, you know, many people ask me, and sometimes people do not believe that what we are saying in terms of what it will cost a house, because the price of a house has come from 11 million shillings to 3 million. Among the issues that we have cut down for us to make it that affordable: number one, you remember, it was the cost of land.
Right. Number two, we've taken out the cost of land.
Number two is professional fees.
We've taken it down from 12-15% to 2%.
Absolutely. And it was a product of negotiation because we told you the fees may have come down, but the scale has increased.
Absolutely. You know, so you can balance the coming down of the rate with the expanded scale. Is that right?
Very much so. You remember we also had a big discussion on the cost. For a very long time, people thought it was not possible to construct at the rate of now 40,000.
It was 55, 60, 70, going that way. And sometimes many people are wondering how have we dealt with corruption, because people thought this was going to be a corrupt scheme.
We have dealt with corruption by negotiating ahead of time. Today, if you are going into that space as a professional, you cannot tell us you're charging 15%.
No, you can't. The rate is fixed.
You cannot tell us that you are going to construct at 70,000 a square meter.
We have fixed the rate at 42, was it?
For this track. So we have two types. We have what is called the contractor model.
Then we have contractor plus finance.
It is 42,000 because they do invest a little bit.
And because of fixing the ceiling, and we disclose it, so it's no longer a secret. Because in the past, you have to look for what is called engineers' estimate, and those who have engineers' estimate obviously have an advantage. So we publish our budget, we publish our rate, and what we have seen is that people are competing. So if you come at 42, you know you're going to be the most expensive. So the prices are actually... the one at 42, it's at 40, and the one at 40, it is down to 37 and 38.
So just for the satisfaction of the people of Kenya, and Jennifer sitting here, we did something deliberate to protect the resources of the people of Kenya. Ordinarily there would be corruption with engineers' estimate. This engineer's estimate is a moving target, or has been a moving target. So what we decided is we are going to have... we costed everything. We agreed that if you want to come and work with us, the rate we are going to pay is 42,000 per square meter. If you cannot do 42,000 per square meter, thank you very much. Go find some other job. Right? And we have found that it is doable, and that is why we have complete projects that are going on, whether in the market space, whether in every other space. And therefore, I want to assure the people of Kenya that we were intentional when I said... I remember making a statement that there will be no money to be stolen. I meant it. Today there is no money to be stolen in affordable housing because the rates are fixed.
Yes, there is nothing to... there's no negotiation actually. There is nothing to negotiate. You either meet the rates or you take a walk. And the margins are very tight. The reason why... I must say this, the reason why we don't have these fancy contractors in affordable housing is because the margin is very slim. You know, there are people who are used to margins and margins and margins and fat and fat. There is no fat. There is just a reasonable margin for people who want to do business. Those who want to steal from government, they have to look for other places. It is not going to happen in affordable housing. And I want to thank professionals. You people have really gone out of your way and you have helped us.
Thank you. Amina, I know... what challenge do you have as a lady in this space? Have you experienced any challenges when people discover that you are a woman and you are the boss and you are in charge, or it's been okay?
The challenge is there, being a woman in this field. And I'm not a contractor and I'm not an engineer, I did accounting. So being an accountant and then going to the construction field, it was not easy. But with all the challenges, I got strong confidence and do a good work, a quality job. Yeah.
Thank you very much. So you have overcome the prejudices. You have overcome the challenges. And slowly people are beginning to believe in you as the person in charge and the owner of the business.
So I'm happy that you're doing the markets. What is your plan going forward? Have you built enough capacity for you to transition to the next level?
Exactly. I'm not only doing the market, I'm also doing civil work like harbors and the roads. I also work in other departments like KDF. When KDF Day in Eldoret, you were there. I did all those works.
Your Excellency, the impact of the manufacturing sector is actually one of the areas that we'll need to watch because manufacturing continues to be the highest formal wage employer in the country. The continued sourcing by contractors of local materials here in Kenya, we are able to see this rise of employment and even get to the 1 million jobs we need to attain by 2030. So the story of the manufacturing sector will also be part of the housing agenda. And of course, we want to appreciate the State Department of Housing who've continued to make sure that manufacturers are coming to the table to discuss what capacities they have to supply the market and also tell the contractors that we have local materials. Please make sure that you also source from the industry. So we thank you so much for this opportunity. Government projects continue to provide market access to industries here in Kenya. So this is actually quite good and congratulations to the interns who are here. Maybe a word for them is that the industry actually needs skilled workers. Majority of the employees who are there are actually skilled workers, not the real professionals. The skills that you see, they go for the real people who have skills. So this is actually an opportunity for them to get experience and to see whether they will be able to tap in. Being a woman again, it was so impressive listening to the women who are here and congratulations to them and of course congratulations to this program for putting them also on the forefront to show that women are able to also enter into these fields. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Your Excellency. My name is Harvier Singh Sati from Landmark Holdings. We are building contractors and main contractors on a number of the affordable housing projects across Nairobi. Through this program and because of its sheer scale and volume, we've had the opportunity to invest in aluminium formwork. We met a couple of months ago at KZA when the formwork was arriving. I can happily say now we are using the formwork. We are able to reduce slab cycle times from 21 days to 7 days using this formwork. Within just the first 6 weeks of using the formwork, we have managed to upscale casual labourers to aluminium technicians, formwork technicians. I will work with the State Department to come up with a new trade of workers called aluminium formwork technicians. We'll work together to find a way to certify them. So our aim through this program is to build scale, is to upskill our labour force, to encourage these interns to get involved with new technologies. See what the Asian Tigers have been doing, how they have done it successfully. This, like you said, is tried and tested. We're not reinventing the wheel. We are just moving with the times. We want to thank you, Your Excellency, for this amazing opportunity. Without your vision, this would not be possible. And to thank you very much, sir.
Thank you very much, Abseti.
Hello. Good morning, Your Excellency. I think it's about 12:00. My name's Anthony Mongi and we have met a couple times. I'm the MD for DAB Construction. I have about 10 projects that I'm doing. I have one in Karatina where you came the other day and you did the groundbreaking. I have another one at Fika Kabati Kabu where I would ask you to visit us one of these days. I'm also doing institutional housing for three universities: Cooperative, Multimedia, and Kenya School of TVET. And I have a couple of ESP markets that have taken over from some of our fellow contractors who got stuck on the way. We are helping most of the smaller size contractors. I'm a civil engineer by profession. I studied in the USA and I came to Kenya. I worked there for 20 years and I came and I went to roads construction, Kenya National Highway. I've done a whole lot. I was recently maintaining the super highway but when this program came, Your Excellency, it's a huge opportunity. Some of these things I used to see happening in the United States, I never thought they were going to happen here at home. And I can tell you, I am very proud of you because of the boldness and the courage. Sometimes when I listen to you telling people this is the way to go, and I know you are the visionary, but I just wish they could see how other bigger countries have transited and became what they are because of what you said here, the construction industry. Your Excellency, I have employed about 2,500 workers currently. And the most amazing thing is that being back here in Kenya, I competed with the Chinese and they were a little bit ahead of me when I came here because of course they had the resources. But today, I don't think I would even consider Chinese as a competitor anymore, Your Excellency. You have given me an opportunity number one to be bankable. When I go to Sidian Bank, when I go to HFC Bank, when I go to KCB, they now come looking for me. I have an account that is receiving almost like a billion shillings. And these guys, they want us now. Previously, when we went to look for money to construct, they didn't want to hear anything from us. They told us we are contractors, we doing government projects, we couldn't get paid. So they didn't want anything to do with us. But today, Your Excellency, the banks, all the industries, they are camping at our doors because of this program. The mama mboga who feeds people in my construction site, you will come and see her coming there every day and she's guaranteed for a job for another two years in one specific site. So she goes and she comes and tells me she wants me to help her to put together some money so that she can be able to go and buy unga to make chapati. So when I give her money, she tells me I want to give you the names of those workers when you're paying them on Saturday, you deduct the money, you pay yourself, and then you run me again. So her money is guaranteed. It won't get lost. But now she has an enterprise. The drivers, Your Excellency, you know there are things that here we may not articulate. Drivers that we have hired to track the materials from quarries. We have revived dormant quarries, Your Excellency, which didn't have even hope. Those people are back to work every day crushing aggregates, cutting stones. We can go on and on and on but this enterprise, what I would say is that it's not for millionaires or billionaires. It is capped as you said, this is not an enterprise where contractors will be the richest. No, but it's an enterprise that is going to give us a lot of equity. We are bankable. We have resources. Now I have almost like 10 batching plants. And I heard a lady here say that she has employed people to use traditional methods instead of using the modern technology and that is great but also there is another kind of us whose slabs cannot be concreted by the 12. I tried, they went for six days and some of them I actually had to look for medicine to be able to resuscitate them. So we had to look for batching plants which can handle 1,200 cubic of concrete and now we own equipments that can perform the modern technology that was unforeseen in Kenya. We never thought we could have those things and we need to clap for you for enabling us to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Your Excellency.
Thank you very much. Anthony, have I visited any of your sites?
Yes. You came to Karatina the other day. We had a very good time. AHP Karatina.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. The market.
No, no. The affordable housing.
The affordable. Yeah. The one that we were there the other weekend.
Very good. Very good. Very good. Very good. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And thank you very much for speaking to me on behalf of many people, you know. And then we are going to go into this conversation shortly. Yes, my friend.
Afternoon, Your Excellency. I'm Chris Abuga, MEP engineer, electrical engineer by profession. I run a firm by the name of Lynx Consulting Engineers. I lack words because when we started the program we focused on what we knew and PS had a dream which I know he came and consulted with you, that's why he was talking about manufacturing. We've just recently gone to tender for the MEP equipment for all the sites, all the 50 sites plus we focus for the next 5 years. What we are doing was not imaginable when we were sitting in the first table when we were discussing but with time it has become a reality to us. I know with time the effect will be seen because we've seen the response from the public. What I'm talking about is lifts, LV boards, water treatment plants, sanitary wear. So one thing as my experience which was given by affordable housing, there is something that has happened that I know all the consultants around here will talk about, majorly the MEP engineers. There's a collaboration among the 35 firms and that's not the full consortium, I'm just talking about the MEP engineers. For like what we're doing right now, we're doing the electrical, Gamma Delta doing the mechanical parts of the tendering and the documentation. So we've been moved from that competition, fighting for survival, to now becoming actual professionals and thinking beyond the norm. Because I sit with the engineer Disheru and we think through, you don't think he's from Lynx, he's from Gamma, and then we submit it to the rest of the engineers and it's peer reviewed, it's critiqued. And we don't take offense if we are told something is missing. So we have had a whole seven months of back and forth of coming up with what, there are 17 documents. So it's so transformative that sometimes you sit down and think about it and we would never thought we could do anything to this scale in terms of MEP engineering. So what I'm talking about is we are envisioning to, we've gone to tender for manufacturers. We are not doing suppliers. We have gone to tender for manufacturers of the MEP components. The incentives that are being given, which I know PS will speak to, we've leveraged on the economies of scale. An example is lifts. In the next 5 years, we anticipate 58,200 lifts. We've been doing an annual lift of 700 across the country. Right now, we have upwards of 3,500 lifts demand. So, the market is there, the pipeline is there, the encouragement is there. I was surprised. Some people told us when we capped the price, actually as we speak we are inspiring manufacturing but we've kept the price, it's not open. We've worked from first principle like the lift and that's why I'm saying now we work, we think professionally. We've actually always used to send an email to China, they send back a quote for lifts. Right now we send an email, we ask for the components, we start from the rope to the car to the sheet itself that is making the car so that we take all these pricing, come up together, put a markup that makes sense and that's how the prices are kept. So that I can't come and say 800 kg lift is whatever price I want because, and I'm alluding to the engineering estimate now, the engineering estimate has a basis, it's not just an engineering estimate. So actually it's a transformative experience and I thank you, Your Excellency, for your dream. We are making the dream come. You said something here. Watch this space and I'm sure in the next two years when the factories are starting, everybody will become a believer like me. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Chris.
Your Excellency, Settlement Executive Committee, National Umbrella Body, Your Excellency, it may create a lot of employment but through programs and then beneficiaries. So Your Excellency, another. So create more employment community, larger area through that the money supply area. Crime rates. Mind is, Your Excellency, area. Zone A, zone B, zone C, zone D. Z, Your Excellency, 465 units. Excellency, over 15,000 people and then construction site, the largest construction production site. So in Your Excellency, affordable housing project.
Thank you very much, Stanley. Happy new year.
Happy new year, Excellency.
Quanza, I just want to tell these good people. We have very wonderful people in Kenya. We want to change the houses for you. We've done phase one, phase two, phase three. That is the program that we have. We have a way that we can work with Kenyans and make sure that they understand and we give them alternative settlement as we develop our slum areas. And Stanley and your committees, you have been phenomenal. You have been great. They will be the first beneficiaries. Hinges, standardized. Do you understand that standardized doors is different from the other one? Every window is different from the other one. You understand that?
Yes. Okay. Your Excellency, architects want to make sure it is the right windows. So the quality, the best quality, professional bodies. Yeah.
The first time I met you.
Yeah. 4,460 something. When there's estimated time for us to deliver. I saw some painting going on.
Yes, we are the first block. Finishes by April it is done.
So by April, so tell your committee members, April, May, June we will be handing over the other 4,000. And I also want to tell you the other 15,000 housing units we have already issued the contracts.
Yes, we have already awarded the contracts.
Yes. And it's now we just need to agree on the enumeration as you said.
So we are negotiating. They are tough negotiators.
But in the next coming weeks and then we will start the construction. Please.
Your Excellency. Do you have an idea? Yes, I have got an idea. The 10% that means that 600 and then one bedroom 100%, 100 which means 31 million and then 5 years a deposit. So comfortable to save, we can surpass the 10% so that mortgage. So it's better exactly 10% depending. Your Excellency, 3000. Mhm. Your Excellency, the daily%.
Okay. So that's why so Stanley, 12. It cannot be more transformative than that. That is what it is. And that is why many people cannot believe what we're telling them. When they were living for the same 3,000 in a slum, it doesn't look real. But I want to tell you, go to Mukuru today, you will find real people. Almost 5,000 people today, they are living in those houses paying 3,900. What Stanley is saying here today, that is how transformation looks like. That is how you change a country. You can move people from a slum to a modern house. If you provide leadership to all these people, the contractors are here, the suppliers are here, the engineers are here. My friend David, David, how has the affordable house or the construction industry in your opinion, how has it changed your business?
Well, Your Excellency, first I'll take you back to when you came to do groundbreaking at Soto. You know, at that point, everyone was doubting this project. No one had a belief that this can be actualized. But I remember when I attended the groundbreaking, I listened to you and I saw a man with a mission. And when we sat down as a board, we decided we have to be intentional and we must support this program. And that is how we started supplying. Soto, we have been at the center of that project and our steel has been consumed there. What happened, Your Excellency, and what people need to understand is everyone had just come out of the COVID heat. So all the businesses were suffering, people were being laid down, government was not doing infrastructure projects. Then affordable housing came in. Affordable housing from where I sit has been in a space where it has brought back people to employment. We had reduced our workforce. Now our workforce has gone to almost 1,500 on permanent. We have within the supply chain another almost 3,000 people employed downchain. We have over 10,000 people who benefit from our factory production all the way to when Anthony is doing his team. It works around me increasing my capacity from 200 tons a day to 300 tons a day. Me increasing my fleet from 20 to 60. That means I have to employ more drivers. That means I have to employ more turnboys. That means I have to employ more people to load the steel. I have to employ more people to offload the steel. And this goes down and trickles down to creating more business and more capacity. We have also been able to just for numbers in the last two years or let's say two and a half years.
So what are the numbers? What are the numbers? You've increased your capacity from two...
We have increased our capacity from actually we used to do an average of 6,000 tons a month. Now we have the capacity to do over 20,000 tons.
