The Nairobi County Government has urged scrap metal dealers across the city to report anyone attempting to sell a stolen sculpture from Nairobi Central Park to the authorities.
In a statement on Thursday, June 26, Nairobi County Chief Environment Officer for Environment Geoffrey Mosiria said that some sculptures, which were removed from the Park, are still missing and have been classified as stolen property.
"Kindly, if you come across any of these sculptures at a scrap metal dealer, or if you run a scrap metal business and someone shows up with stolen property, please report it to the nearest police station," he said.
Residents and businesspeople have been urged to contact their local police station if they see anyone with any of the sculptures. The missing sculptures depict wild animals such as elephants, lions, hyenas and buffalo, and are made of bronze.
He added that the county is in the process of re-erecting sculptures that were found scattered around the Central Business District (CBD) and returning them to the park from which they were removed.
Mosiria, who stressed the need for protestors to take care of city infrastructure in the future, said that the county government will now be forced to incur expenditure in replacing and repairing the sculptures.
"There are some sculptures that were removed from Central Park, and we are now in the process of returning them. But I would like to encourage Kenyans to ensure that they respect such things during protests because if you destroy them, it will force the county government to spend taxpayers' money in repairing and replacing them," Mosiria said.
Mosiria has further assured that his department is working to ensure that they clean up the mess, including stones, tree branches and broken concrete slabs used by demonstrators to block streets and roads during yesterday's protests.
"We will continue cleaning up the city and collecting all the stones that are in town, to ensure that people continue with their businesses today normally. I want to assure you that there is peace in the CBD and you should not fear coming here," Mosiria said.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Wednesday in different parts of the country to commemorate last year's anti-finance demonstrations.
However, the demonstrations took an unfortunate turn when sections of protestors descended into violence, especially in Nairobi, which ended up causing severe damage to business premises and some of the city's infrastructure, including street lights and trash bins.
In a statement on Thursday, June 26, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei urged Security agencies to launch a crackdown on anyone who was involved in the looting and destruction of businesses and infrastructure during the protests.
"The burning, maiming, and looting of businesses and disruption of peace in a few areas must not go unpunished!" the senator said.
