City Hall rolls out plan to boost SMEs’ growth

Nairobi county government wants to profile small and medium enterprises operating within the city in a bid to help them remain stable and expand.

In a vrecently published tender documents, City Hall is seeking to hire a consultant to profile and identify opportunities and challenges faced by SMEs operating in Nairobi City County.

This comes at a time majority of small-sized businesses are struggling to pay salaries amid depressed sales due to economic fallout caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The consultant shall profile the SMEs…and develop a strategy of engaging the SMEs to enhance their growth and spurring economic development,” says Nairobi County.

The consultant will be required to within 21 working days identify challenges facing the SMEs and recommend solutions for overcoming those challenges.

The onset of the Covid-19 containment measures such as a nighttime curfew, first imposed in March last year, saw businesses scale down operating hours, exacerbating drop in sales which were flagging even before Covid struck.

A recent survey by the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI) indicates six in 10 small-sized businesses are struggling to pay salaries.

The survey shows 67.2 percent of traders faced challenges in paying workers at the end of 2020 compared with 35.3 percent before the pandemic hit.

Aside from the Covid-19 shocks, city traders have complained about harassment from County Inspectorate officers commonly known as Kanjos.