Farmers protest over poor state of roads

Farmers from Mailla area of Naivasha sub-county are unhappy with the poor state of roads in the agricultural rich area.
According to their spokesperson, Florence Wamaitha, food produce was rotting in their farms as vehicles could not access the area.
The farmers complained that they had been neglected for long by both the county and national governments as far as development was concerned.
Wamaitha said even after the new county leadership came to power and promised that the roads would be rehabilitated nothing has been done so far.
“We have plenty of food in this area but it’s rotting in our farms since we cannot transport it to the market because of the poor roads,” she lamented.
She said that their pleas to have the problem rectified had fallen on deaf ears noting that successive regimes had ignored their plight.
To demonstrate their disappointment, on Thursday April 11th, more than 500 farmers carrying placards and twigs paralyzed operations on the Kongoni-Maila-Narok road on the southern part of Lake Naivasha. They demanded that their roads be repaired before the expected long rains.
The group which included some elderly persons said they had undergone untold suffering for long as the state of roads in the area continued to deteriorate. Further, they planted banana seedlings on the road to register their anger.
A local leader, George Muchiri, said that a dispensary constructed by the previous county government was under-utilized as the county had failed to equip the centre with the necessary equipments forcing them to travel to Naivasha which is about 60kms away to seek for health services.
He lamented that a borehole sunk in the area had not been functioning leaving them with no option but to rely on contaminated water drawn from dams.
By Esther Mwangi/Silas Mwiti