by Barrack Obaga
Background Information on Kenya
The country known today as Kenya was created by European colonialism in Africa, which lasted from the mid-1800s to the 1960s. Kenya was a British protectorate from 1895 to 1920 and a colony from 1920 to 1963.?The?Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) was the administrator of Kenya and was given a Royal Charter to exploit Kenya commercially.
The Construction Sector
The construction sector in Kenya is set in an environment that has fuelled the myriad changes it has undergone in such a relatively short history. The factors that are in the sector?s environment have either slowed down or speeded up the pace of sector?s growth in the country. These factors, in a glimpse, include:
- Politics of both the?Pre-Colonial Period and?Post-Colonial Period
- Sustainable Development (Environment,?Society and?Economy)
- Economic and Financial Services including?Credit Availability and Accessibility
- People and Culture
- Tenure and Legal Framework (Titles,?Mortgages,?Easements,?Secure Legal Rights)
- Fiscal Policies (Expansionary and Deflationary)
- Land Use and Environmental Control ? (Policies,?Spatial Planning,?Control of Land Use)
All these factors have in one way or the other, affected the course of the construction industry over time in Kenya. These will be addressed in the detailed study of history of construction in Kenya.
?IN THE BEGINING??
In the pre-colonial era, traditional Africa communities in Kenya used large tracts of land covered in forests as buffers. For example, the areas occupied by the Agikuyu and the Maasai were separated by forest land.?In the Rift Valley, settlement was mainly riverine between the Njoro and Molo rivers before moving to Nakuru town. After 1908, Afrikaners trekked into Uasin Gishu plateau and they established their settlement in the Highlands that centred Eldoret town.
European Settlers
Land ownership was largely communal until the arrival of the European settlers; that led to a conflict. This conflict had never been experienced in Kenya before. The conflict was characterized by the conflicting African and European concepts towards land and land ownership. The European concept prevailed.
The Kenya-Uganda Railway Project
In addition, the Kenya-Uganda Railway construction influenced the settlement of the Europeans. Nairobi is said to have formed the second early settlement core of settlement near the Mau escarpment.
By the end the First World War, the entire railway line from the east of Kiu to Kisumu ran through the alienated land meant for European settlement. The fertile and agriculturally viable highlands were mapped out as European areas. The Africans were kept in overpopulated reserves, bordered with large tracts of land. This suppression led to the initiation of the process that led to the nation?s independence in 1963.
It?s worth noting that the White Highlands were critical and dominant elements in the political, economic and cultural development in Kenya.
Nairobi
IBEAC facilitated the construction of a railway connecting the east coast region of?Mombasa to Lake Victoria. The company employed?James Macdonald assisted by?John Wallace Pringle, both officers in the?Royal Engineers, to undertake the survey in 1891-1892. The two reported favorably, noting that Kikuyuland would be suitable for European settlement. However, the IBEAC lacked the funds needed to start the work. The IBEAC started building the?Mackinnon-Sclater road, a 600 miles (970?km) ox cart track from Mombasa to?Busia on the Uganda border, in 1890.?The main part of the Mackinnon-Sclater road was completed by the British government after the demise of the IBEAC.
Nairobi was founded in 1899.?It grew up around a railway line constructed by the British colonial officials from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast to Uganda. The present site of Nairobi was selected as a stores depot, shunting yard (place where trains are shifted from one track to another), and camping ground for the thousands of Indian laborers (also British colonials, who came to Kenya seeking work) employed by the British to work on the line.
The Asians
The Asians stayed along the coast of Kenya for a long time before they moved into Uganda and Machakos during the construction of the railway line. They were restricted from engaging in agricultural activities and were, therefore, more likely to be found in significant numbers in the towns and trading centres that were growing with time. This enabled them to fill an ?economic vacuum? between the European farmers and administrators and the African masses. The Africans, as a result, more often than not made contact with the Asians through the Indian duka.
The Urbanisation Process
The railway line and growing European and Asian influence played a pivotal role in the urbanization process, and subsequently in the construction sector. Trading centers developed and they played a very important linkage between the rural areas and the modern urban-based sectors of the space economy. These centres were the most viable commercially despite them being the untidiest and the most unplanned places in Kenya. The growing urban populations of the small towns soon triggered an increase in construction activities in both urban and peri-urban centres
The colonial government paid no attention to controlling and regulating the planning and building of these centres. The uncontrolled development has remained to present day and time. This has subsequently become a characteristic feature of those centres even to date.
In the post-colonial period, these conditions were improved upon due to the continued urbanization process that led to some of these centres being upgraded to urban centres.
The transition from the colonial government to self-government left Kenya with challenges such as:
a)???? Improving the effectiveness of public sector spending on physical infrastructure development and maintenance
b)??? Improving labour absorption, labour relations and job stability
c)???? Reducing impact of HIV/AIDS on the construction industry
d)??? Ensuring international competitiveness
FROM COLONIAL TO POST COLONIAL
At the time of independence, there were difficulties facing the construction industry. These included:
- A serious shortage of all kinds and levels of skilled labour; without any easy means of training
- Bottlenecks in the supply chain and scarcity of crucial building materials produced in Kenya
- Inadequate forward planning in the wholesale and distribution sectors
These were worsened by the fact that inappropriate designs were adopted and a serious failure to adapt technologies employed to the level of resources that was available. This was reflected in the rapid increases in prices of deliverables as well as significant and noticeable fall in the quality of work in the sector.
Corrective policies were notably missing to make right the wrongs done by the players in the sector.
At the time, most firms were predominantly owned and operated by non-citizens, especially the Asians. These were earlier used as contract labour from India, and they stayed in Kenya after their contracts expired. They then began accumulating capital through trade, transport and distribution, with others moving into the construction industry.
Demand for housing for various functions and purposes rose, thanks to European settlers and Asian traders and the colonial administrators.
At the time, the industry followed the British model since it observed hierarchy and it was stratified along the racial lines. Europeans held the positions of engineers and architects. They also had contracting firms. The Asians were next, with mid-level firms.
This was not only limited to professional groups but also in the field of construction materials. The larger, national-level and regional manufacturers were largely Europeans, either foreign or domestic.
The Asians, part from owning medium-sized firms, also owned quarries and the distribution channels. These included the importation, wholesale and retail networks of materials, and were deemed to be the backbone of the industry. The Africans, however, occupied the lowest positions of semi-skilled or unskilled labour e.g. labourers and tradesmen. Very few Africans owned firms.
In the post-independence period, the Africanization/Kenyanization process began, with the following aims:
- To encourage African commercial activities under ?settlement schemes?
- Non-Africans were to be replaced by Africans in public sector jobs
- Kenyanization of commercial and service sectors
This process is widely believed to be more politically instigated than it was economically. The result was that there was uncertainty among the European populace and panic among the Asian mid-level public sector office holders. The results included an acute shortage of contracting firms and lack of a healthy competition between the existing contracting firms.
Asian-owned firms were the best at this time due to their paying attention to managing the businesses. They operated under tight budgets with extremely low overheads with high degrees of flexibilities. Some had to move into the industrial production sector.
Right from independence, the Ministry of Works had the responsibility of administering all projects regarding the central government as well as civil engineering projects. It began, under the Africanization Process stipulated the first 5-year plan which reserving small contracts to African-owned construction firms. Bias clauses were introduced for bigger projects in the form of price tender advantage in a bid to favour the African firms, on the condition that they agreed to revise their prices downwards to the level of the lowest bidder.
Records indicated that by 1967, 200 Africa-owned contracting firms were registered. Some were briefcase companies while other offered labour-only contracts to Ministry of Works projects in gravelling roads. These firms faced disadvantages such as:
- Little experience as far as site organization is concerned
- Inadequate knowledge of managerial, commercial of administrative matters
- Lack of knowledge on matters of tendering for construction contracts
- Inadequate plant and equipment
- Inadequate/lack of capital
- The Asian suppliers were not sympathetic of African entry into the industry and were unwilling to afford the Africans credit
?
The Government formed the National Construction Corporation that sought to enable African contractors enter the industry, a very competitive market. Its philosophy was ?learning by doing? whereby the African contractors were to be assisted and trained during the construction process. They were only supposed to meet the following requirements:
- Obtain the work
- Obtain the finance required to complete the project
From the above, the functions of NCC were:
- To help contractors obtain work
- Provide them with adequate finance
- Assist them with the actual construction process
In the 1970?s the Asian-owned transport and trading businesses were forced out of business due to legislation. The laws reserved these operations for exclusively African firms, forcing the Asians to move into the construction industry. They had double advantage: their business acumen and capital.
This saw a sharp increase in the number of Asian-owned construction firms with the following advantages:
- Top-notch efficiency
- Ready access to materials
- Access to capital
- Additional supply of labour, which was not available for African ones
In the recent past, we have had new legislation and developments including formation of the Nairobi Metropolitan Region which shall be shared in Subsequent Posts.
About Author: Mr. Barrack Obaga
Barrack is a student of the University of Nairobi, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management. He is currently pursuing his Bachelors of Quantity Surveying. We wish to state that this is a good gesture and we are thankful for the time he took to share this Knowledge.
Tags: History
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Posted in Africa Architecture Business Contracts Urbanization by ujenzibora
Source: http://ujenzibora.com/nahinga/2012/02/a-brief-history-of-kenyas-construction-industry/
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