The Embu Governor’s office and the regional Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) offices were among government and private facilities destroyed in yesterday’s anti-Finance Bill demonstrations that degenerated into full blown riots.
The ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party’s Embu Branch office was torched and reduced to a shell, as was a section of the Mbeere South CDF offices in Kiritiri.
The demos were held in all of the county’s five subcounties but were worst in Embu town and Kiritiri market where the rioters also broke into and ransacked the La Quinta Supermarket associated with Runyenjes Member of Parliament, Muchangi Karemba.
Several cars that were in the Embu Governor’s yard were burnt and reduced to scrap.
The determined rioters fought with policemen deployed to guard the Governor’s offices for more than an hour, pelting the officers with stones while the officers responded with gunshots and tear gas but they eventually overcame the officers and entered the offices where they lit fires.
At the KRA offices the rioters ransacked the front office that usually has about 40 employees and made away with computers, desks, and waiting room benches.
When the media visited this morning, only desk drawers and lots of paper remained strewn all over.
In all the towns KNA surveyed this morning, only remnants of smouldering tyres remained on the roads as a grim reminder of yesterday’s mayhem. Municipal workers used rakes to clear the remnants while residents appeared to go back to their normal business.
At the La Quinta Supermarket that employed 14 workers before yesterday, workers sifted through the debris. A foul smell of the teargas used to disperse the looters hung in the shop.
By Steve Gatheru
