Kisumu Governor Prof. Nyong’o has said that schools within Kisumu city center will be moved to the outskirts of the lakeside city to put the prime land on which they sit into economically valuable use.
While addressing the press in Nairobi on Wednesday May 4, Proff. Nyong’o mentioned that Kisumu government was exploring ways to make schools in the county share amenities so as to save land for commercial use. “Considering the value of the place, that land needs to be useful. We need to construct an integrated urban center rather than schools,” said the governor.
The governor reported that each school has a field, a swimming pool and other amenities occupying large plots of land. Thus, why not take them to arears where schools share such, adding that they do not require a field for each school. The county boss added that the city land should be used for commercial purposes by setting up profit-making establishments.
“Five schools can have one field because they don’t use it all the time. Students from school A can use it the morning and in the afternoon school B brings its students,” he added.
Kisumu Boys High School is among the institutions to be affected as it is set to be relocated to Kibos area in Kisumu. The other schools in the alleged prime land to face the same fate include; Kisumu Girls High School, Manyatta Arabs School, the Kisumu County Referral Hospital, the main bus terminus and the city’s Jua Kali market.
In a plan revealed last year, Kisumu County Referral Hospital is set to be merged with the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital.
“ASK show ground is an area of about 100 acres. It used to have a show of two weeks in a year and the rest of the year the 100 acres remained idle in the center of the city,” “And now an investor has built ultramodern convention center and the other one has expressed interest in constructing a hotel around the stadium.” said governor Nyong’o.
The governor’s comments came just before the 2022 AfriCities Summit which will be held in Kisumu from May 17 to May 21 2022. The theme of this year’s convention is ‘The role of intermediary cities in Africa in the implementation of the UN Agenda 2030 and the African Union Agenda 2063’.
