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Thika-based firm wins tender to manufacture armed forces uniforms

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, so many companies were hard hit by the socio-economic conditions that were brought about by the strict government measures aimed at curbing the spread of this disease.
Many of them closed down and laid down their workforce or reduced their production.
Thika Cloths Mills, a major player in the textile industry in the country, was among the companies which felt the heat of these drastic measures.
The lockdowns and shutting of all learning institutions, impacted negatively to the factory forcing it to close down.
However, the management through local arrangement with the workers representatives have been paying the workers half-pay while at home.
Though the company can employ more than 2,000 workers, it is yet to open up fully.
Before COVID-19, it had employed 700 workers and supporting over 500 cotton farmers in Ndalani. There is a ray of hope however after the government came up with some recovery plan in order to save investors.
Thika Cloth Mills has now been awarded a tender to manufacture clothing materials for Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) among others.
TCM CEO Tejal Dhodhia has thanked President Uhuru Kenyatta for keeping his word and putting much consideration on the manufacturing especially at this time of COVID-19.
She challenged other Kenyans to take advantage of government programmes especially in line with the Big 4 Agenda where manufacturing and industrialization was one of the key pillars of Uhuru’s legacy.
She said the factory was also making materials for Kitui governor Charity Ngilu’s KICOTEC factory that has been contracted by the government to make masks for schools and uniforms for Chiefs and their assistants.
“We were severely hit by this pandemic and were wondering on what we would do to our cotton farmers whom we have been supporting from Ndalani in Machakos, Kitui and other parts of the country because they have a bumper harvest and we are supposed to go and buy the cotton with Kitui Ginery this month”. Said Tejal.
She is optimistic that things will return back to normalcy and especially during this time when the president is expected to open the economy next week.
The “Buy Kenya Build Kenya initiative has also been supported by Thika Town MP Eng. Patrick Wainaina who has tabled a bill in Parliament in a bid to discourage unfair importation of goods from China and other parts of the world a bill he says has taken shape after he recently gave the minister for Industrialization a list of over 3000 items he wants importation ceased.
Wainaina described these importation as a major threat to the local economy adding that it was one of the main contributor of the wanton unemployment crisis in the country.
He said he fully supported Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta Big 4 Agenda saying it is the only software to assure economic stability in the country.

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