Investor Pumps over Sh117 Billion to Revive Galana-Kulalu Food Security Project
Bridge being constructed inside the Tsavo East National Park by Selu Africa Limited, (Photo By Mwakwaya Raymond)
By Mwakwaya Raymond
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Selu Africa Limited, one of the companies investing in the Galala-Kulalu Food Security Project to inject over Ksh117 billion (880 million US Dollars) in the project for a period of ten years.
The firm, which is at the final stages of acquiring a lease and other government authorizations, will start full operations with an initial Ksh10.6 billion (US$80 million) to open up 20,000 acres of land for irrigation for a period of three year period, according to its chief executive officer Nicholas Ambanya.
“We look forward to injecting 80 million US dollars in the first three years of this project that will see us put up an investment covering 20,000 acres of land.”
From there, the company will put another approximately 800 million US dollars in a period of seven years that will add another three years to make it a total of ten years of commercializing 200,000 acres.
Ambanya, speaking to journalists after the company’s senior officials conducted potential partners on a tour of the infrastructure. The company has reached a stage in which it was finalizing on the acquisition agreement and ready to start farming operations.
“What we were doing today was that we were bringing in some of our potential in terms of investment for them to appreciate the infrastructure the government has put in place, the work we have been doing all along, in major sectors such as the bridge, the dam and others so as to go together with us as we come to what we have been waiting for, the start of the project.”
The company and its partners have put in place within part of the 1.7 million Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) farm situated in Tana River and Kilifi Counties a dam and intends to use already laid down infrastructure by the government and other development partners.
It is also constructing a bridge across the Galana River within the Tsavo East National Park that will be used to transport the massive harvest expected from the farm once production fully commences.
“The investment we are putting up is mainly irrigation infrastructure plus the rest of support infrastructure like equipment, machinery, roads, housing.”
Asked how the company expects to succeed where other companies such as Green Arava have failed, the CEO explained that the main reason the government contracted the Israeli firm was not for government to farm, but to develop an infrastructure, test to confirm that it was working and then, handover as a model farm to the private sector.
Among the infrastructure to be put in place through the Korean Solar Power Consortium is a solar plant intended to supplement grid power, with diesel being used as a standby source of power. This is intended to lower the cost of doing business within the farm.
“We will have three sources of power in this project: solar, grid and diesel or fossil energy. We prioritize solar because we want to go green and also lower the cost of energy. This will be backed up by the grid while diesel will be standby,” he said.
According to him the primary crop to be grown within the farm will be maize, but the company will also develop other value chains that would be grown alongside the maize.
