Investor supports privatization of government-owned industries

Industrialist Narendra Raval has called for privatization of factories and state-owned enterprises urging the government to hand over production and job creation to the private sector, noting that profitable industries and poverty reduction can only be achieved through private investment.

Raval, the chairman of Devki Group of Companies, made the remarks recently during a special general meeting of the Kishushe Ranching Cooperative Society Limited in Taita Taveta County, where shareholders granted consent for the company to proceed with iron ore mining and related factory development in the area.

Addressing residents and leaders, Raval said governments should focus on creating an enabling environment while allowing private companies to run factories and industries, which he said are better managed and more profitable under private ownership.

“The work of the government is not to give employment,” Raval said, adding, “the work of the government is to privatize everything. Even the factories that are there should be privatized. The government should think and privatize them because the government-run-factories cannot run profitable. Private sector runs the same with profit.”

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Raval said his experience across Kenya and the wider region had shown that private investment delivers jobs faster and sustains industries longer than state-run enterprises. He noted that Devki Group currently employs 18,000 people in Kenya and another 7,000 across Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, projecting that by the end of 2027 the company will employ 41,000 people in East Africa.

“There is not even a single person in the whole of Africa, in private sector employing 41,000 people, I will be the only one,” he said.

He stated that political interference and resistance to private investment had in the past denied Taita Taveta major industrial opportunities, revealing that a factory initially planned for the county had been relocated to Samburu due to what he termed dirty politics.

Raval urged leaders and residents to reject divisive politics and stop politicizing development projects, warning that communities bear the cost when investors walk away.

“Bad politics is what is disturbing our county. There is nothing else,” he said, adding that failure to exploit available minerals only deepens poverty.

By Michael Oduor

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