Ruto Orders Fresh Tender for Magadi Minerals, Demands Local Processing and Return of 70% of Land to Kajiado
Photo: Courtesy.
By Robert Mutasi
President William Ruto has ordered a fresh tender for mineral exploitation in Magadi, Kajiado County, opening up the resource to multiple investors and imposing strict conditions for local value addition.
Speaking during a development tour, the President said the move was aimed at ending nearly a century of what he described as exploitative extraction in the area and ensuring that minerals from Magadi generate jobs, industries and wealth for Kenyans, especially residents of Kajiado.
Ruto said the government will advertise afresh to allow several companies to apply, rather than awarding the vast resource to a single investor.
“We are going to advertise afresh so that other companies, not one company, other companies, five, six, 10 companies, can apply because the resource we have in Magadi is big enough to sustain more than one company,” Ruto said.
The Head of State said the new contracts will contain firm clauses requiring investors to process minerals locally instead of exporting raw materials for value addition abroad.
“This time round the contract is going to be firm on making sure that value addition of our minerals of the resource in Magadi is not going to be done abroad. Value addition is going to be done here in Kenya,” he said.
As part of the government’s industrialization plan for the area, Ruto said manufacturing plants will be established in Kenya to process the minerals.
“A glass factory will be done here in Kenya. A chemical factory will be done here in Kenya to hire Kenyan workforce, to use Kenyan resources so that we can grow well and we can create value from the available products,” he said.
In a major policy shift, the President announced that the government will significantly reduce the amount of land allocated to any single mining company in Magadi.
He said no investor will be allowed to occupy the entire 240,000 acres previously associated with mineral extraction in the area.
“No company will occupy 240,000 acres of Kajiado land. They are going to occupy maybe 20, maybe a maximum of 30 per cent. Seventy per cent of that land will come back to the people of Kajiado County,” Ruto said.
He added that the reclaimed land would be made available for other economic activities and to directly benefit local communities.
Ruto’s remarks come amid criticism from some quarters over the government’s decision to end the existing arrangement involving Tata Chemicals Magadi, which has operated in the area for decades.
The President hit back at critics, accusing them of using legal arguments to defend an arrangement he termed exploitative and against national interest.
“There is no rule of law that sustains extractive, exploitative conduct that undermines the interests of the nation or the interests of the people of Kenya,” he said.
“You cannot use the rule of law to protect criminals and characters who are exploiting our citizens and our country.”
He argued that Kenya cannot claim to be creating jobs while continuing to export unprocessed raw materials.
“You cannot say in the same sentence that you want us to continue exporting raw materials and at the same time say that we are creating jobs. If you are exporting raw materials, you can never create any jobs,” Ruto said.
Defending the decision to terminate the existing contract, Ruto said it was necessary to give Kajiado residents and the wider Kenyan economy a greater share of benefits from the country’s natural resources.
“We have made the right decision to end the exploitative and extractive contract for Tata Chemicals in Magadi, Kajiado County,” he said.
“For nearly 100 years, Kenyans, especially the people of Kajiado, have not received their fair share of the benefits from the minerals extracted from their land. That era is over.”
According to the President, the fresh tender will ensure broader participation, create manufacturing jobs, and anchor value addition as a central requirement for any investor seeking to exploit minerals in Magadi.
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