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Thika to acquire city status after Uhuru signs Cities Bill 2017.


Thika town and all other urban centres with a population of 250,000 people and above will from now acquire city status after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed the Urban Areas and Cities (Amendment) Bill 2017 on Tuesday.

The new law enables county governments to review the criteria provided for classifying an area as a city, municipality, town or market centre.

The law has reduced the number of people required for an urban set up to become a city from the current 500,000 to 250,000.

The current population of the town is estimated to be over 300,000.

This law also allows counties to declare an urban area a municipality if it has a resident population of at least 50,000 residents.
An area qualifies as a town if it has at least 10,000 residents with a market centre requiring only 2,000 residents.

The law also proposes the establishment of boards to govern and manage cities and municipalities and outlines specific requirements for appointment to the boards.

The president also signed into law two other bills; The Petroleum Bill 2017 and the Energy Bill 2017.
The 2017 Petroleum Act will provide a framework for contracting, exploring, developing and producing petroleum.

The new energy law establishes three key national entities to manage and regulate the sector. These are;- The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, The Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation and The Nuclear Power and Energy Agency.

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