The Multi Million World Bank road project along the
Kakamega Webuye highway faces an eminent closure if relevant authorities
including institutions are not compensated as agreed.
The noose has tightened over the neck of the Chinese
company involved in the blasting and crushing of murrum in Kakamega North Sub
County after several school joined in the fray to stop the exercise over
failure by the former to compensate for damages.
This is after word went round that the drilling
company Jiangxi Zhongomei (JZEC) had secretly purchased another piece of land
adjacent to the initial blasting site where they planned to start the
excavation activities early next week without settling the pending debts it owes
the locals and schools within at large.
In a meeting attended by the locals and school
representatives, the residents who were led by their Makhwabuye quarry
community against quarrying and crushing chairman Isaac Mutanyi and Secretary
Tabitha Tuyia, stated that it was either their way or no way at all for the
Chinese to either compensate them first for the cracked houses before they
freshly negotiate for the second blasting or alternatively they pack their
belongings and move out.
In a memorandum of understanding signed by the two
community officials, and also to be served to the World bank country director,
county director of education among others relevant organization it states that
there will be no further activities at the new site until the contractor honors
the pledge between itself and the community.
The school representatives led by the Malava county
polytechnic board of management chairman Wasimbi Muchanja, said time for
theatrics and acrobatic maneuvers by the contractor was over and it should
either abide as per the agreement or move out indefinitely after two years of
empty promises.
The chairman who was charged wondered why the
contractor had engaged the community in a hide and seek games and pointed out
that the compensation being demanded by them was already slotted in the
blasting budget hence they should not fear to demand for their rights as it was
enshrined in the constitution.
We are facing a lot of danger from this contractors
and we as an institution we have almost all our buildings cracks and we had
reached an agreement with these people that they will handle the issue and now
they want to start blasting again without settling the first debt now how will
they be able to differentiate the earlier and latter cracks on our infrastructure,
let them come over and evaluate the depth of damage then pay out before they
begin over again.
Muchanja maintained that the institution was not going
to allow more damage to its infrastructure without proper and documented
agreement on the modalities of payment put in place.
Quarry activities along the road. Image|Courtesy
The Malava primary BOM chairman said the project had
adversely affected the school infrastructure that saw the public health
condemning all the toilets at the school and directed that the school be closed
but the contractor intervened promising to compensate to do the repairs.
“To add on that our classrooms have cracked but are
housing large population of pupils from
private schools and it is a looming danger as anything might happen and we as a
school wants the contractor to pay us so that we can carry out necessary
renovation that include even the administration block to normalize learning
failure to which we could be sitting on a time bomb that could go off anytime.
The deputy head teacher Amos Makokha representing the
head Peter Sammy Sikolia said the school was on verge of closure after failure
by it to renovate the six classrooms condemned together with the toilets.
He said the head teacher was thinking of taking the
legal way if the contractor was unwilling to pay for the damages as it was the
only suitable way to seek redress.
The director of the Malanga Patience academy Beatrice
Mavuka added her voice of how the blasting has been a nuisance to her learning
programme with the contractor directing them to evacuate now and then when
blasting exercise is on saying this has affected her academic performance
despite discouraging many parents to enroll their children there.
“This is a private owned school and we have baby class
to standard 8 and this noise blasting, and dust from quarrying has been a big
problem to our young ones who have been able to fully concentrate due to the
disruptions, beside we have just like other schools cracked classrooms and
latrines and even floors and we have not been paid anything up to know and we hear
that they want to start again the exercise, we don’t know what will happen to
our buildings as they are already weakened by the earlier activities.
She wished that it could be stopped for the sake of
the surrounding schools including the biggest extra county (Malava Boys and
Girls) who have also suffered immense loss from the drilling exercise.
Her head teacher Harun Mukopi Mavonga said they had incurred a lot of
losses from the construction site and failure by them to compensate the school
has seen its intake drop and the school physical infrastructures being
dilapidated and urged the government to intervene to ensure that they get
justice.
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