• He says the US is committed to seeing Kenya become self-reliant and not depend on the US or any other country.
• The ambassador says the US has identified eight 'prosper counties' for American investors to invest in.
The US government is seeking to strengthen trade ties with Kenya.
Ambassador Kyle McCarter said on Tuesday this will enable Kenya to stop reliance on foreign aid.
“My vision is that in the next decade, Kenya will move from just being a beneficiary of foreign aid to being a benefactor for East Africa," he said.
"I believe that Kenya will go from aid to trade because in a friendship, the best thing you can do for one another is to set people free, not to dominate, not to control and not to enslave.”
McCarter was speaking in Kiambu when he paid a courtesy call on Governor James Nyoro.
He said the US has identified eight 'prosper counties' for American investors to invest in and is committed to seeing Kenya become self-reliant.
“The way to do that is to invest in each other and give hard-working Kenyans an opportunity to work,” McCarter said.
He said Kiambu is the first 'prosper county' that the US has picked. “We do not want to bring American investors to places where they are not trusted or where the leadership is not trusted. We want to bring Americans to places where there is good leadership and that is why we picked Kiambu as a prosper county," McCarter said.
He said the US and the Kiambu government will come up with ground rules on how to do business and sign a free trade agreement. Once this is done, he said, they will make it go beyond the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
“The free trade agreement is just letting everyone know of how we are going to do business above-board as nothing will be done under the table. There will be no brown envelopes but there will be an honest discussion and agreement upon how we share, how we invest, and then we're going to be accountable,” McCarter said.
Nyoro said it is a privilege for Kiambu to be identified by the US government as 'prosper county'.
He said the county government has prioritised health and that investors who will put their money in the sector will boost service delivery.
The governor also said the county is looking forward to American investors to invest in water, sanitation and solid waste management.