Highway traders risking life and limb to make quick buck

Oblivious of the danger from moving vehicles on the highway, traders rush to sell their wares to matatu passengers at Total along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway. [Photo: Boniface Thuku/Standard]

The cut-throat zeal to eke out a living in an open air market at a major junction along the Nakuru-Eldoret road poses danger to traders who, however, do not seem to notice or care.

As motorists and pedestrians approach Total Trading Centre in Mau Summit, Nakuru County, aggressive traders scramble for customers, displaying their wares on every available place and often forgetting to watch out for their own safety.

And danger could come from any direction because vehicles approach the junction from three directions—Kericho, Eldoret and Nakuru.

Not only are fruits, vegetables and other wares displayed dangerously close to the road, thus narrowing the thoroughfare, the traders often rush onto the highway in a bid to make a quick sale to passing motorists. It is a terrifying scene.

The junction is on the nation’s busiest corridor, used to transport cargo to and from the port of Mombasa to western and northern Kenya as well as neighbouring countries such as Uganda and South Sudan.

Every once in a while, there is an accident on this highway caused by brake failure or containers falling from the trucks.

The inclines on the road do not help matters. Just a week ago, a tyre came off a bus travelling to Nairobi from Western and hit an electricity pole at the Total junction. Fortunately, most of the traders had closed for the day.

This happened barely a week after a truck veered off the road and hit some traders waiting for customers off the Kericho junction along the same highway, fracturing the limbs of two women and destroying their wares.

Stanley Mitei, a driver who frequents the route between Total and Eldama Ravine, says many people have lost their lives in the scramble for customers.

“There is a police station near the open air market that should prevent people from displaying their goods on the road. But the officers turn a blind eye,” Mitei says.

“Last week a young trader was knocked down in the middle of the road by a speeding vehicle. He was trying to catch up with another vehicle heading in the opposite direction.”

Sometimes, he adds, traders find themselves trapped between two vehicles, resulting in injury or loss of life.

The chairman of the traders’s sacco, Kefason Mekubo, says the Government should not evict them from their area of operation before setting up a proper market for them.

Survival

“We need a way to provide for our families. Some of the wares on display cost less than Sh20. This tells you that many of the people here are only looking for a means of survival,” Mekubo says.

The most common wares are carrots, onions, fresh and roasted maize, potatoes, tomatoes and an assortment of fresh fruits.

“This life is not easy. Nobody with another option to earn a living would risk his or her life on the highway for Sh200. It is an indication that there is a lot of poverty in the land,” adds Mekubo, who is originally from South Mugirango in Kisii County.

He says about 300 people trade along the road, with at least some of them working at the makeshift market all hours of the day and night. About 100 of them formed Umoja Sacco to fight for their rights.

“Members make monthly contributions, most of which are channelled to pay medical bills and burial expenses. We are often rained on, and pneumonia is a common ailment,” narrates the sacco chairman.

Jane Nduta, who sells carrots, says conducting business on the roadside is attractive because she can hawk her vegetables to passersby, bus passengers and people waiting to board vehicles at the bus stop. Roadside traders pay a monthly levy to authorities.

An official receipt indicates that the Nakuru County Government collects up to Sh360 from each of them monthly, but no services like toilets and shades have been provided.

But an official from Kuresoi North Sub-county said those collecting money from the traders at the bus stop are market officials.

Another trader, Milka Kariuki, called on the county government to build a market for traders to discourage them from displaying their wares on the road. Milka, who began trading at the junction in 1988, said space by the roadside was woefully inadequate.