When Kenyan industrialist Narendra Raval broke ground on his company Devki’s new steel plant in Tororo at the weekend, flanked by President Museveni and Kenya’s President William Ruto, he credited Uganda’s vast iron-ore deposits, roughly 500 million tonnes, and its predictable tax regime for the investment. He added that Uganda does not allow the export of raw iron ore, so anyone wishing to trade in it must process it locally.
However, the story of the Sh2 trillion steel plant, which Raval described as the largest on the continent outside South Africa, is not straightforward. The deeper and more interesting reasons lie across the border in Kenya, and they provide a sample of something important about how East Africa is being economically rearranged from the ground up.
Tororo sits just across the border from Kenya’s Lake Region Economic Bloc (LREB) counties.
LREB comprises 14 counties, including Kisumu, Bungoma, Busia, Kakamega and Nandi, with a combined population of about 14.9 million people, roughly 31.4 percent of Kenya’s total. That represents a vast, rapidly expanding internal market. Since devolution began, these counties have improved infrastructure, strengthened local economies, and deepened intra-county trade.
They are also Kenya’s population hotspots. More people means more consumers, more housing construction, more schools, more churches, more food products and, naturally, more demand for cement and steel.
This, therefore, is not just a Ugandan resource story; it is a cross-border demographic dividend play. Tororo companies, along with others in Mbale and Kapchorwa, are effectively leveraging Kenya’s population and economic growth without paying Kenyan land prices or navigating all of Kenya’s regulatory burdens.
Drive through western Kenya or along the highways that weave through Kericho, Kisumu, or Bungoma. You will see a striking number of Tororo Cement-branded lorries, a visual reminder that Uganda’s industrial footprint is already firmly embedded in the region.
The same story applies to Geossy and Rocksprings Fish Farms in Tororo. They export large volumes of fish daily to the Kenyan market, meeting demand driven partly by population growth and partly by the slow decline in Lake Victoria’s fish catch on the Kenyan side. A 2022 Aquaculture Road Map Uganda report lists Rocksprings as one of the country’s largest tilapia hatcheries, producing 24 million fingerlings annually.
Then there is water, a highly underrated but very real factor. Kenya’s per capita renewable freshwater availability was about 406 cubic metres in 2018 and is projected to drop to just 235 cubic metres this year. The LREB region is fortunate: it benefits from Lake Victoria and multiple rivers – Nyando, Yala, Nzoia, Sondu, and others – providing its water supply with far greater stability than much of Kenya.
That reliability provides a long-term natural advantage for agriculture, aquaculture and industry. For the next 30 years, this area will host some of the best fundamentals for small industry and food processing in Kenya, and any nearby Ugandan town will benefit from proximity.
Add these factors together, and you see why Devki’s steel plant is more than a Ugandan bet. It is a cross-border arbitrage: Uganda provides raw materials, stable tax rates, and processing capacity; Kenya offers a booming market, population growth, and water-secure counties.
Tororo, though improving, is still anaemic, but it is beginning to function almost like a satellite of the LREB region.
To understand why, one must look at what has changed in the LREB counties. Devolution channelled funds directly to local authorities and allowed leaders to make faster spending decisions. Infrastructure improved, markets expanded, health centres grew, and small towns became better governed. Even with corruption nibbling at budgets, the net effect has been transformative. Household incomes rose, construction boomed, small manufacturing plants opened, and thousands of new traders entered the food and retail economy.
A walk through Kisumu today is instructive. The city shows new discipline and order, with cleaner streets and more structured public spaces than you will often see in Kampala, which retains its unique talent for organised chaos.
Kenya is slowly shifting from a coastal and Nairobi-centred economic focus to one where inland population belts drive demand. Tororo, along with Mbale and Kapchorwa, is the nearest Ugandan urban centre to these rising counties, providing their businesses with a cheaper logistical route into the country. It would be immensely profitable for Uganda to replicate this model across all its borderlands.
Once these pieces are assembled, Devki’s steel plant looks less like a classic Ugandan investment and more like a clever bet on a cross-border subregional economy quietly taking shape. And if you ask me, it is the boldest bet of all.
It tells us that within the broader East African Community story, the integration that really matters for places like Tororo is not the headline politics in Arusha or the trade speeches in Kampala, but the everyday subregional system that works across borders.