A New Hope for Kakamega County

Luck rarely happens twice. If it does then it’s a blessing. Kakamega County lies on the western part of the country and is the second most populous county after Nairobi. It has been on the limelight for its mineral resource (gold) abundance. Mining activities in the county have taken place for many years up to the present time but most of the medium large scale mining of gold took place during the pre-independence days. The largest gold deposit in the county was located at the Roster man Gold Mine in the 1950s, a few kilometers from Kakamega town where it was operated. It closed down in 1952. Mining in Kakamega County usually serves as a seasonal or part-time activity alongside other activities commonly agriculture.

Mining generates additional income for the household to satisfy particular needs but is never the main source of livelihood. The current news about the multi-million high grade gold deposit discovered in the county has made implications on the hope of the residents of having a better future. The news was well received by the locals and the county at large. But then the discovery of the multi-million high grade gold in the area makes me raise an eyebrow on a few issues that haven’t been considered by the locals.

Gold mining activities will immensely contribute to poverty alleviation in Kakamega County. This may be achieved through financial support, legalization of the sector, training of miners, and putting in place measures on how to properly invest income from gold mining. Employment will be vast in the area and this will help reduce the number of idlers in the county which may positively affect the youths who often get themselves involved in criminal activities and drug abuse as an alternative way to making sense of life. Since mining employs more than the industrial sector, residents in the county would be employed and this would improve lives at individual, and household levels which will build resilience and enable families to cope better. Gold mining could just be the moment that Kakamega county has been waiting for to make a significant growth in its economy. Mining brings more income and faster economic returns than other livelihoods such as agriculture because traditional livelihood activities are becoming less viable due to climate change.

Compensation is one of the most important parts of the deal that the locals look up to. It enables some to leave the table with large sums of money to settle in other villages. Though this has given them a second chance in life it also alienates them from their social and cultural backgrounds and beliefs because most of the people around the mine areas are asked to vacate their lands. Even though they get huge sums of cash to vacate most of them have had to leave their life as they knew it behind. Coping with new socio-cultural beliefs proves quite difficult.

Also the participation of the community in the making of critical and important decisions relating to the gold mining activities is minimal. Most people who live around the gold mine areas may never be given an opportunity to air out their views on whether the mining should be done or not nor will they be involved in making the decision on relocation of people from their socio-economic and cultural lives.

Most people in the rural areas of Kakamega county live under the poverty line. The availability of formal employment opportunities in the urban centers compared to unprofitable farming which is the major economic activities in the rural areas of the county is the culprit in this case. Faced with unreliable farming, changing weather patterns brought about by climate change among other detractors, many people in the rural areas look for other ways of earning a living to mitigate poverty and its resulting effects.

Most of the challenges that the employees face in the mining sector include:

• Lack of formal training and having received little education on the same. This has seen most of them capable of only doing petty jobs in the gold mine sites. In turn, they lose a great opportunity to earn good salaries that could improve their lives more. Instead the petty jobs keep them in the poverty cycle because the little they earn can barely mitigate poverty and feed their families.
• Unhealthy and hazardous labor conditions in the mines increases the chances of fatal dangers to the workers
• Income variability limits access to formal credit systems forcing them to make unprofitable deals with informal creditors. Few small scale miners earn enough to invest in education, more efficient technology and other assets that would allow their families to advance.

Despite all the positive impacts brought about by gold mining, there are negative impacts as well.

• Land use conflicts are becoming increasingly apparent from local to global scales. Surface gold mining is an extreme source of such conflict, but mining impacts on the locals always remain unclear.
• Gold mining removes vegetation and soils, interrupts ecosystem service flows, and results in inevitable and permanent farmland loss.
• Mining activities also frequently result in toxic waste that causes water pollution and health problems.
• Likewise, dust pollution from heavy traffic on mining dirt roads affects neighboring communities and soil erosion is common around mines.

Overall, mining erodes livelihood foundations, forcing people to relocate and farmers to develop alternative income strategies. As a consequence conflicts between communities and mining operators over land use rights are common and can become a serious threat to development and security.

These factors have kept the locals for years in the vicious cycle of poverty and vulnerability and the great question is what can be done to break the poverty and vulnerability cycle so as to ensure sustainability and improvement of the residents of Kakamega County?

The discovery of the multi-million high grade gold in the vicinity of Ikolomani village in Kakamega County has been most residents’ dream to a better life, but how will the mining impact economic, social and technological development in Kakamega County?

Written by Amina Martha