Eldoret Town has attracted a Sh40 billion real estate project, making it the single largest investment by the private sector in Western Kenya and the latest in a growing list of multi-billion-shilling investments outside Nairobi.
The initiative to be known as Sergoit Golf and Wildlife Resort was unveiled by Tourism Minister Najib Balala, a signal that it is eyeing to tap into the expected demand for accommodation as the western circuit opens up to tourists.
Sergoit Holdings Limited, the company behind the project says it will be built in four phases. It will entail over 2,000 villas, three golf courses, a 5-star hotel, a shopping mall, a conference centre, a hospital, schools and a private airstrip among other amenities enclosed in a 3,100 acre perimeter fence.
Sergoit means good luck ahead in Kalenjin.
Each phase will cost about Sh10 billion with Phase I expected to be completed in a year, according to Sergoit Holdings chairman Joshua Chepkwony.
Located 15 kilometres north east of Eldoret Town, the project is expected to be completed by 2016 with an expected boost to the tourism industry, currently grappling with an estimated 40,000 deficit in quality bed capacity.
Like Tatu City, the company will put up an independent management company to run physical infrastructure, including roads, power, water, waste, drainage and fibre optic connection among others, in what is being envisioned as a golf town, but on a co-shared ownership structure with residents.
Other features of the leisure and golf resort city include scenic nature and fitness trails, a view of game and scenery, rock climbing, athletic training tracks and a water splash.
“This investment will add to the existing bed capacity within this region, which is among the priority areas targeted for diversifying our tourism products,” said Tourism minister Najib Balala last week in Nairobi.
“Important too is the fact that the resort presents experiential and interactive tourism, which has become the latest trend among the youthful and middle class tourists from all over the world,” he said.
The project seeks to tap into the growing middle and upper economic classes as well as rising remittances from the Diaspora. Eldoret is Kenya’s fifth largest town and one of the fastest growing with a population of about a quarter a million.
Movement of the real estate market outside Nairobi is also being driven by the newly rich class of professionals and top civil servants who are looking for quiet peri-urban homes, but cannot afford the rocketing prices of similar property in the capital.
Other projects lined up outside Nairobi include a Sh1 billion investment into a 190-unit housing project by property firm Translakes Limited in Kisumu Town, a 2,400 acre holiday leisure and golf resort city, Longonot Gate, Naivasha’s exclusive Green Park and Vipingo Ridge estates.
Source: Daily Nation
Looks good on paper-but if the truth be told this is just another pipe-dream. Just like Tatu City in Juja and Konza City in Athi River this concept of so called luxury living is going nowhere fast. Let us check out the facts: How many Golf Clubs already exist in Eldoret? Where is the clientele with the money( and more importantly the sophistication) to live in Sergoit and work in Eldoret Town? Who is willing to invest in infrastructure (roads, banks, restaurants, fitness clubs, tennis clubs etc, ad infinitum) in a rural backyard were residents are unable to distinguish between a golf club and a walking stick? Who will supply fresh vegetables, fruits, processed foods (beef, dairy, poultry, fish) and all other stuff that go with the haute cuisine fit for gourmet restaurants and homes of the stinking rich? This is a backyard that knows only two crops wheat/barley and maize!
The only beneficiaries of this Grand Concept are the land owner, one Stephanus Petrus Kruger (Fanie) and his family (and rightly so) and of course the plethora of middlemen and conmen who will want to reap where they did not sow It is a pity that the initial undertaking by the Kruger family to pass on the land to the ‘locals’ did not reach full fruition. In the words of Fanie Kruger the family has farmed at Sergoit for close to 90 years and it would have only been proper and morally right to give the locals an opportunity to have a shot at purchasing the farm. Using the current model from the ‘Old Country’ (South Africa) Kruger was to stay on the farm for 7 years training and mentoring carefully selected managers who would have taken charge of the expansive crop, livestock, and wildlife operations on behalf of EMO Investments the community based outfit that was to represent local investors. But EMO ended up with only 550 acres after a clique of self-centred bureaucrats, politicians and property speculators carried out a smear campaign against EMO, the end result being that the locals grew cold feet and EMO was not able to raise the deposit (KSh 200 million) within the agreed time-frame. The vultures then descended upon Fanie son of Leen du Plooy Kruger and the late Jan Ernst Kruger and persuaded him to buy into their Grandiose Plan. Makes perfectly good business sense for the Kruger clan. Not so for Kenyan Agriculture in general and Kruger’s hapless and poverty stricken Nandi, Keiyo and Tugen peasant neighbours in particular. They are the biggest losers. They needed to go back to Farming School. Their classroom would have been Sergoit Hill Farm. It is no more. The bad and the ugly have won once more! But then again maybe the problem is with Fanie Kruger. Way back in 1987 his neighbour J J Du Toit speaking to David Zucchino, an Inquirer Staff Writer, said of him “he has little awareness or interest in his heritage” When Oopa Stephanus Petrus Kruger arrived at Sergoit in 1924 from Dullstroom South Africa, little did he know that a future grandson of his would surrender such rich farmland to a non-agricultural congloromate!
Annemarie Mwalomet
Chepkoilel River Wetland Trust Eldoret
I totally agree with those sentiments! Eldoret is a town fast asleep, despite its leaders sitting in power!
how does one book a villa there?
How does one get to book a villa