Everyday there's news of a new project or investor.
We all know that every investor has his own objectives and requirements for his projects. This means a large cadre of government officials supplemented by expatriates is needed just to manage the investor projects.

I am no expert that is why I ask.

Do we have the ability to cope with so many mega projects at once? Energy,manpower etc or are we going to see an influx of foreigners coming to help us build? just to mention a few we all know.

1. 200b Tatu city
2. 800b Konza city
3. 6b Isiolo resort city
4. International airport in Isiolo
5. Region's anti-terror centre
6. Lapsset project-Under the plan,the region will have railway lines, highways, oil pipelines, airports and resort cities.
7. $775 million Lake Turkana Windpower project.
8. Coal to be mined at Kitui where deposits are said be among the largest in the world.

and many more.

I feel like we have A LOT in our hands as a country but less time if they decide to engage the same people (based on qualifications) to manage or work in the projects.
Are citizens up for the challenge esp the idle youths in rural areas? I think Kenya needs to prepare its citizens for the developments or else most of the work will be taken by foreigners leaving kenyans to provide cheap labour that will only last as long as the projects.

I heard one karua say there's nothing wrong with projects but the speed at which we are rushing to implement them is worrying.

Your views please?

Probably we would worry about those projects being funded by the government and there is no proper handing over to the next government.

The said projects have little to do with elections.
How many elections are there between 2012 & 2030?
When was Vision 2030 mooted? 2012?
Tatu & Turkana Wind power are private entities,gov't involvement is to the extend of governance/regulation.
Isiolo Resort city is a designation of the Isiolo area,the investors will be private entities.Think Jeju Resort Island.
The projects falling squarely on gov't hands are manageable once the contractors are identified.
UAE has done so much with a fraction of our schooled population.
Let's not set our targets too low, or be afraid of thinking big.
Parkinson's Law.

Don't think Big. Think BIGGEST!!!

With proper planning and management, we can manage. We have so many idle Kenyans. Don't we have 40+ ministries? If you ask me, we should be having 40+ mega projects if each of the ministries is to justify it's existence.

We have been spending loads of cash on recurrent expenditure and it is very refreshing to see money going to capital expenditure! Now we just need controls to keep corruption at bay and to ensure proper SWOT analysis and cost/benefit analysis has been done.

@essyk - If you look at the projects you've listed what are the roles of Ministry of Agriculture, Education, Health/Medical services etc. Should they just wait until these projects are finished to roll out theirs?

IMHO, these projects are manageable all of them if our systems perform optimally and proper management is done on them. Off-course there may be burn-ups in the supply side if there is to be a lot of over-laps as projects compete for raw materials.

Of-course our worry should be the publicly funded projects

i agree

While it's good to have these "big" projects, we may also want to look at the macroeconomics level and try to understand what this big projects will eventually do to the economy.

The effect is signicantly different depending on who is the investor or who owns the venture.

Question is, how does our Balance of Payment(BoP) curve look like, what about our GDP and GNI?

Our BoP has continued to head South basically meaning we are importing way more that we are exporting. Our GDP is fine due to the foreign investments but the real indicator of economic growth -GNI doesn't look too good. The GDP looks good due to signifcant inflows of foreign based investors. However, these non-local investors do not contribute to our GNI, instead the real income is reflected in their home countries.

I agree with @MaichBlack that there is a great deal of analysis that needs to be done before embarking on some of these projects.

Yes, same logic applies. Those Kenyans working in the region bring income or account for our GNI.

The only problem is that majority of those people go there on what you might consider to be small and personal ventures.

Larger businesses such as NMG, Equity etc are the scale of operations that can contribute to significantly increased GNI due to the scale of their businesses. The overall profits are remitted back to the headquarters.

Now, consider the size of investments the Chinese and others are making and ask yourself what's the catch. They must have calculated some really credible returns to those investments.

While it's not wrong to open the economy to other investors, we need to remember that at the end of the day they are interested in the bottom line and not necessarily to be involved in solving the social-economic issues in the country.

These are not many projects in my view.

For vision 2030 we need them and more. I just wish we could add good governance and better driving schools in the mix.

There is one caveat though. If the citizenry keeps quiet as they are apt to do and leave these things to the beuracrats who hide water when there is a fire, then they will not happen.

One of the major ingredients of any project, gov't or private, working is an informed and aggressive client. If we as Kenyans refuse to question these projects, then they will all die.

The good thing is that at least we have started with vision. What is needed now is the work. Kazi kwetu.

PPP