Why Kenya’s Sh3 billion industrial centres have failed to take off

Only 152 of the 235 Constituency Industrial Development Centres (CIDCs) built by the national government at a cost of Sh3 billion are fully operational, with 54 partially operational and 58 remaining idle due to funding, power, land and infrastructure challenges.

The State Department for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development has told the National Assembly Trade Committee that the centres established to provide small businesses with shared production facilities and equipment, have struggled to take off despite the government’s push to establish 290 such facilities across the country.