By Abala Wanga
My Governor, Prof Peter Anyang Nyongo, acknowledges that in his engagement and consultation with the program leads at UN-Habitat, he proposed that I enroll in the International Leaders in Urban Governace Programme under the Singapore-UN Habitat Third Country Training Programme conducted by the Centre for Liveable Cities sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore.
Profoundly, of all my global experiences, Singapore has been the most prolific.
Ever since I started working with my governor 19 years ago as his mentee, I have enormously expanded my foreign experiences in over 49 cities, but Singapore scores highly.
The Singaporean story is one of grit, hope, and resolve. The nation underwent immense challenges, that is poverty, disease, misrule, and expulsion from the Malaysian federation.
Under the able leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, in the 60s, the nation grew into a first-class economy with high living standards.
The city went through a 15-year process of planning, reinvention, and executing the program of prosperity.
I rate it very highly by all economic indices with an A-class governance model.
I am indeed forever indebted to my governor for building and reshaping my career, a debt I can’t repay but to keep praying that God continuously grants.
May God grant you the wisdom and strength to lead us to greater economic heights.
The actionable takeaways for Kisumu from Singapore include: improve and modernize the Kisumu city master plan to bring the city into strict zoning regulations and the creation of growth nodes.
Zoning should consider the highly economic trading zones such as bus termini, markets, and industrial parks.
In Singapore, they have improved trading zones and removed traders from the street to the industrial park and markets.
In Kisumu city, there is a need to upgrade the Jubilee market, expand Kibuye and relocate traders to the Uhuru Business market.
Kisumu City’s proposed industrial park at Nyamasaria and Kibos should be the centre for all the business activities in the city.
I saw Marina Bay in Singapore and the gardens in the bay, so the proposal to create Kisumu Marina Park with a 10-kilometre promenade is inevitable.
Dunga should be cleaned up and the canteens modernized with a Marina, while Hippo point should be expanded to a park into the wall front.
Rivers Nyamasaria, Alewra and Wigwa should be converted to urban canals for boating and urban transport to controls floods.
Housing projects in the City should embrace the Singaporean model with proper designs and it should be county and national-government-driven.
There is a need to redesign the city drainage and sewer systems, water diatribution sytems along side the road infrastructure to an easy transport mobility system
We plan to introduce street lighting with CCTV and use artificial intelligence to gather information.
In waste management, we will adopt new and modern technology and we will leapfrog towards the Singapore model.
All these projects will not succeed if we don’t reorganize our land ownership system and Kisumu City requires a huge tract of land for expansion and growth
The county should consider the acquisition of additional land for these projects as was witnessed in Singapore
Abala M Wanga is the
City Manager
Kisumu City
