Residents of Jilore location in Malindi, Kilifi County, through whose land high voltage electric power transmission lines pass, have appealed to the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO) to speed up the payment of their wayleave compensation.
The residents claimed that they had waited for more than six years to be compensated by the company, which, they claimed, had also prevented them from developing their land or renovating existing structures following a valuation the company carried out in 2019.
Speaking in Sosoni village, the residents said they needed the compensation in order to relocate to other areas to pave the way for the transmission lines, which are already in place and a danger to them.
Mr. Edward Kingi, a resident, said more than 2,000 households had been affected by the transmission line from the Kakuyuni sub-station in Kakuyuni ward to Weru in Jilore ward within Malindi constituency.
Riziki Loda on her part said her houses and pit latrines had collapsed and she had not been allowed to re-construct them and that she and her family are forced to sleep and answer to calls of nature in the open, thus exposing them to health risks.
“I do not know what to do. One of my sons had brought building blocks to construct a house but he was told to stop the project. This made him to be discouraged and sell the building materials,” she said.
She said the delay in compensation was disadvantageous to them since land prices are going up every day and the amount of compensation may not be able to help the residents to buy land since the valuation was done when land was cheap.
Her sentiments were echoed by Janet Dama Baya and David Mwagandi Charo, who added that the residents were tired of empty promises from the company and urged local political leaders to intervene and help them get the compensation immediately.
Mumba Mwagandi Ngala said when the company approached the locals, it promised to change their lives, a promise that he said had become a curse at the promises had not been fulfilled and the locals were living as paupers.
Daniel Nzai, a member of the compensation committee, said the delay in payments had made committee members to be looked at as enemies as the residents always blame them (committee members) for their predicaments.
“I regret being in the committee because fellow villagers think we, the committee members, a complicit in the matter, when in fact we are also suffering like them,” he lamented.
A survey in Sosoni conducted in the village revealed that some homes had been abandoned as the houses are no longer habitable.
And as the residents were addressing the journalists, KETRACO employees arrived in a van, dropped a local administrator and drove off. The administrator declined to speak to the media.
By Emmanuel Masha and Daniel Mae
