Wundanyi as the choice of the former Taita Taveta District Headquarters would not be a surprise to many, thanks to our colonial master’s preference to highland areas with vast arable land and cool climate. Practically though, it seems to have been a poor choice as the topography of the area does not support rapid expansion of infrastructure, this in addition to its distance from other edges of the county like Taveta.
Mwatate is the nucleus of the county as it is the where roads to all other areas of the county seem to emanate from. Save for the persisting long distance to Taveta, which will be a non issue once the road has been properly constructed, Mwatate is a fairly flat area that makes development of infrastructure to support a county HQ quite easy. The town is however too underdeveloped with inadequate water, housing and other basic amenities and needs proper planning and development for it to make it a worthy county HQ.
Voi is well developed, with fairly superior infrastructure than all other ‘urban’ centres within the county. Topography of the area is perfect for further expansion. Like Wundanyi, it is also on another edge of the county and the distance factor seems critical in selection of a HQ.
Taveta, on the other hand, is where it shouldn’t have been. With all the potential it habours, being a border town and the agricultural hub of the county, it has been totally neglected partly due to the state of the road and more so due to wanting leadership. It also lies on the edge of the county and is the farthest from all other urban areas.
With the above analysis, which I wish to state that it is very INCONCLUSIVE and somewhat VAGUE (by this, I do not wish to discredit myself but rather ask you to be very critical), it seems the town that should naturally be the county HQ is Mwatate.
I hail from Mwatate and some may say my choice is with bias. Well, what’s your choice for county HQ and why?
It wil take like forever for mwatate to become developed and atleast independent from external flactuation i.e. From voi wundanyi etc. For we to realise a developing, stable and sustainable county, the HQ should be placed in voi, then other areas to hold minor offices. Thank you
ReplyDeletean interesting read Martin, Mwatate is definitely, more centrally located, more accessible, but what about opening up the interior by having something in small town away from Mwatate...may be Lushangonyi my home town (this is just meant for debate)...what say you?
ReplyDeleteBrief analysis, but good all the same. I quite agree that Mwatate town is our best bet - inasasmuch as other centres (Wundanyi, Voi & Taveta)have their pros.
ReplyDeleteGood talk.but i still feel voi cld be ideal hq for county coz at least it has better infrastructure than the rest of the towns.
ReplyDeleteIt would be utterly simplistic to use topography as the main attribute to determine where the headquarters should be. Don’t get me wrong, I am not rubbishing your view. A quick search, even on Google, will reveal a number of large cities ‘which are municipal headquarters’ or even government ‘capitals’ that are in great heights and rugged terrains, with roads full of “scream-prompting” bends and steep climbs. But even before we go there, what do we mean when we talk of headquarters? Is it an administrative headquarters, as in the seat of the county government? Is it the business or economic centre? Or are we being influenced by the fact that for a long time Nairobi served as the capital for everything when the nation could have developed different capitals – for instance Nairobi as the administrative capital, Machakos as the IT hub, etc. There is no need to maintain the ‘Nairobi’ mentality when deciding about the administrative headquarters vis-à-vis the economic hub for the county. True, Mwatate is ‘central’ for administration purpose if you are looking at Taita/Taveta factoring only Taveta, Voi and Wundanyi. If geographical centrality should be the main factor then it is easy to sort. Surveyors, planners, mathematicians, whatnot can do the measurements and tell the people which place is the centre of Taita/Taveta, and problem solved! But there are many factors to be considered. Geologists have to check and determine if the land sites thought to be ‘vast for expansion’ could be sitting on mineral deposits, for example. There would be no point demarcating an area sitting on minerals for human settlement. We should also not forget that the county’s headquarters isn’t going to be the only service centre in the entire county. Just as we had provinces with districts, we will have subdivisions of counties. Now, how many of us really needed to visit Mombasa (which was the provincial headquarters, and not central for that matter) for day-to-day government services? At no point has anyone ever complained about how ‘not central’ [and how restricted it is in terms of expansion, being an island] Mombasa was as a provincial headquarters. Now it is suddenly a big matter that Wundanyi shouldn’t be? For the record, I come from Wundanyi division, but I have settled in Mwatate division. At the end of the day, it is service delivery that matters, the location – as it is – is not such a big issue. Politicians are politicizing a matter that should not be politicized. My view, you have a structure already existing in Wundanyi. Let it be. Invest the money in developing Voi as the economic hub, Mwatate as the mining and industrial hub, and Taveta as the agricultural hub. Let us not forget there is Sagala, Kasigau, Mwambirwa, etc.
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