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Firm to manage Konza city to be known next week, says Ndemo

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Photo/File The winning firm that will plan and manage the Sh10 billion Konza Technology City’s infrastructure will be known next week, pushing the commencement of the project that has been riddled by several challenges to the next level.

The winning firm that will plan and manage the Sh10 billion Konza Technology City’s infrastructure will be known next week, pushing the commencement of the project that has been riddled by several challenges to the next level.

The winner will be picked among the six firms - AECOM International Development of Finland, Swedish Sweco International, Dohwa Consulting Engineers from Korea and HR & A Advisors and SHoP Architects, both based in New York, International Finance Corporation IFC in April.

The winner’s core work will entail coming up with a detailed business plan and a partnership document of how the interested investors and the government will relate.

Information permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo said the procurement exercise was completed two weeks ago but IFC had first to communicate to the bidders who lost.

“The government does not have the required expertise to manage such a project and that is why we had to recruit a firm that has experience to do so and this will see handing over the management from the inter –ministerial committees to the firm ” Dr Ndemo said.

“The government is already putting the required infrastructure such as power, water and road and we expect the ground breaking to happen within the next three months.”

The winning firm will sign a contract for five years with the government and is expected to come up with the plan in the first six months and thereafter attract and manage the development at the site for four-and-a- half years.

The firm will be answerable to a public site development authority, the Konza Technopolis Development Authority (KTDA).

Due to the scale and complexity of the project, the KTDA requires complementary support in development planning and management services.

Dr Ndemo , yesterday said that 60 per cent of investments opportunities in the first phase of the project has been snapped by foreign firms with only several financial instutions, telecommunication firms, hotels and learning instutions expressing interest.

The project is modeled on the Private Public Partnership (PPP), where the government offers land, legal backing and architectural plans to investors to build business process outsourcing (BPO) ventures, a science park, shopping malls, hotels, international schools and health facilities.

An initial conceptual master plan envisions a BPO/ITES park, university and science parks, research and development and other central business district enterprises such as banks, government administration and professional services on the 5,000 acres.

The planning is expected to be wrapped up within three months— in time for the launch of the project in October—by which time the promoters of the technopolis believe the country will have concluded the process of establishing a Land Commission.

The government has frozen the sale and transfer of public land—which the ICT Park is hinged on—until the commission is set up.

The ground breaking for the project was supposed to take place last April and the Information ministry says the delay was caused by the need to re-plan the areas where the park is sitting. A legal notice creating the Konza Authority also took longer than necessary.