The adage where there is a will there is a way seems to have inspired Alego-Usonga MP Edwin Ochieng’ Yinda.

The MP was elected last December after several unsuccessful attempts.

He started his political journey in Kanu in mid-1992, but did not make it to Parliament for being in "the wrong party". At least that is how the local people put it.

In 1997, when the then National Development Party of Raila Odinga took control of politics in the region, he remained firm in Kanu and lost.

He is one of the three former ‘rebel’ MPs now in the Tenth Parliament after jumping onto the ‘right’ political boat — ODM.

The others are Rongo MP Dalmas Otieno and Ugenya MP James Orengo. Incidentally, Otieno, a principled politician who remained loyal to Kanu even as opposition swayed Nyanza, and Orengo formerly of Social Democratic Party, are ministers in the Grand Coalition Government.

Yinda, 57, was overwhelmingly elected after ditching Kanu for the "right" party. He floored former area MPs Sammy Weya and Oloo Aringo to get the ODM ticket.

With 77,000 voters, Alego –Usonga is one of the heavily populated constituencies. It covers Siaya Town and borders Bondo, Ugenya and Budalang’i constituencies.

Yinda is referred to as ‘Wuod Lowo’ (son of the soil). Locals say he has helped pay school fees for some children and helped initiate projects that helped women improve their economic status.

After working for various shipping companies in Mombasa from 1976, Yinda went into private business. Four years later in 1980, he started to build an empire that revolved around shipping, clearing and forwarding, tea auction and procurement.

His company, Venus Maritime later merged with other companies to form Spanfreight Shipping Company. The MP runs Venus Tea Brokers.

The MP’s father, the late Mathias Yinda of Ngiya, was an assistant chief during the colonial day and retired in 1969. He went to Ngiya primary school and left in 1966, to join Alliance High School the following year before leaving in 1972. Later, he was employed as a trainee at the Maritime Company of East Africa in Mombasa.

Yinda later went to University of Wales before graduating with a diploma in shipping and port management. He came back in 1976 to settle in Mombasa and to oversee his businesses.

Yinda says he will introduce a new banking concept in his constituency plagued by poverty and high unemployment.

" I have paid Sh350, 000 to the Poverty Eradication Commission to train several registered groups of women doing small scale businesses for the new concept – table banking," he says.

The MP says he intends to use his money to start the ‘bank’ and work with women first. The MP says youths are also going to be considered in the near future.

"I also looking at food security and poverty alleviation in general," he says.

The road network also needs attention. Yinda says tarmacking of the Rangala-Siaya-Bondo and the Siaya-Nyadorera roads will improve the economy of the area including Siaya town.

On the provision of water, the MP intends to put up dams in every location for fish farming and irrigation. The MP says he is looking at horticultural farming as an alternative economic activity.

Yinda says he is unhappy with the on-going wrangles between an American investor, Dominion Farms behind the Sh2 billion Yala swamp agricultural project and some locals. He says the politics revolving around the multi-billion shilling rice farming investment by the American-based Dominion group of companies could affect his poverty fighting strategies.