Four cabinet secretaries were on Tuesday, February 16, hard-pressed to address issues raised by residents during an inspection tour of projects in Murang'a county.
During a stop at Kigumo area, one of the residents, an old man confronted the CSs, Amina Mohamed (Sports), Joe Mucheru (ICT), Simon Chelugui (labour), Sicily Kariuki (Water) over compensation for land acquired for a water project.
In the full glare of TV cameras, an elderly villager took issue with the CSs over delays in compensation for the locals who had given up their land.
"When are they going to compensate the other people. The children are starving and we do not know who to raise the issue with," the man questioned.
The CSs tried to contain the situation, but the old man was adamant about getting an answer.
After listening to his concerns, Amina diverted his question to Muranga County Commissioner Mohamed Bare.
It became clear that the man was following up on his brother's compensation which the county commissioner did not give an adequate answer for.
Before the old man's concerns were fully addressed, he was dismissed by the senior government officials.
Other locals raised concerns over employment for the youth in the area with one resident claiming that the company had fired all the locals that it had hired.
Watch the video courtesy of NTV below:
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The Northern Collector Tunnel, Kigoro Water Treatment Plant and Raw and Treated Water Transmission Pipelines in Muranga County entails 11.8km raw water transfer tunnel to divert flood flows from Maragua, Gikigie and Irati rivers into Thika dam (Ndakaini).
It also entails treatment of water at the Kigoro water treatment plant and transmission to Kabete water reservoirs via Gigiri to supply Nairobi and its environs.
The project's scheduled completion date is April 2021. Overall completion status is at 91%. It’ll supply 140 million litres per day to 1.2 million residents of Nairobi and its environs.
Kigoro Water Treatment Plant is already complete and awaiting commissioning. The project involves the construction of a high-level ultra-modern water treatment plant to treat 140 million litres of water per day from Thika Dam through the NCT1 Tunnel, for delivery to Nairobi.
