Makueni residents to be compensated, says KENTRACO Chairman

Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (KETRACO) will compensate 203 farmers who gave a section of their land for the construction of the Wote-Sultan Hamud high voltage transmission line.
The remarks were made by Chairman of the KETRACO Board Engineer James Rege while inspecting the Wote Sub-station in Wote town Monday.
Eng. Rege said that the farmers will be paid their dues soon noting that the delay has been occasioned by the failure of the beneficiaries to present the required documents.
While saying payments for land were being processed, he observed that his organisation had paid most farmers for crops and structures.
“The delay in compensating the farmers is due to failure to produce the required land documents to hasten payment. So I impress on each farmer to ensure the documents are submitted to KETRACO to ensure they get their monies as expected,” said chairman.
However, Eng. Rege did not give the specific amount the 446 farmers will be compensated especially for land.
On power, the chairman said that there will be stable supply of electricity to the residents in the area noting that the frequent black outs will be a thing of the past.
Eng. Rege observed that the Wote Substation has been energised and will be able to supply power to all residents.
In this regard, the chairman challenged the residents to start income generating projects using power while saying the factories in the area will benefit greatly.
“In future all these outages will be gone. Scientists are working on wireless transmission of electricity and that is coming soon. When we talked of mobile phones, nobody believed it, but now we have it,” said Eng. Rege.
Speaking at the same function, the Makueni County government Executive Committee Member (ECM) for Infrastructure and Transport Dr. Naomi Makau urged KETRACO to ensure the farmers were compensated soon to alleviate their suffering.
On electricity, Dr. Naomi embraced upon the local residents to start income generating projects using power to alleviate poverty afflicting many.
At the same time, she said 449, 175, 32 and 364 trading centres, health facilities, secondary and primary schools respectively were not connected with electricity.
In this respect, she asked the concerned authorities to ensure electricity was supplied to those institutions.
The ECM also said that electricity should be supplied to the households in the rural areas.
“I encourage our people to start small income generating projects. A lot needs to be done, especially in rural areas where we need more connections at household level,” posed Dr. Naomi.
By Patrick Nyakundi/Esther Mwoloi