Residents of Mwiriene village in Akirang’ondu ward in Igembe Central sub-county are up in arms for lack of water and have threatened to demonstrate against their elected leader over negligence.
The search for water, a scarce commodity in Mwiriene village, has triggered residents wrath, who accuse their area Member of County Assembly (MCA), Richard Gitari for abandoning them to fate, which they say has affected their livelihoods.
Residents are forced to camp around the only small stream for an entire night and extending to daytime, to get water for domestic use with some lamenting that due to long queues, they sometimes spend even two days.
“We really wonder what our area representative does in that county assembly if he cannot aggressively fight for our village to get a borehole when the county government is talking of many boreholes that have been completed in our region,” said a resident, M’Njau Baithuranira.
Baithuranira said water is simply life and any reasonable representative cannot sit back and watch as his electorate continue spending sleepless nights at a single stream with many having come from as far as five kilometres away.
The Meru County Executive Committee (CEC) member for the Water CEC, Dr. Eunice Nkirote Kobia confirmed that the government has plans to dig boreholes not only for the residents of Mwiriene but the entire region.
She further said that the government has already dug quite a number of boreholes which are already in use.
Indeed, just recently, the Department of water led by CEC Kobia, the Leader of Majority in Meru County Assembly and area MCA, Victor Karithi led an inspection tour of government boreholes, where communities have started an initiative of piping water to over 1000 families in the neighbouring Athwana ward.
By Kamanja Maeria
