Juja residents protest over poor roads

Ongoing road construction works on Juja-Mirimaini-Mung’etho road being undertaken by investors in the area. The investors last week laid off about 3,000 workers from about to industries due to poor road network that has made the area inaccessible. They said the poor rood network had made the transportation of their products impossible and called on the county government to help them fix the roads. PHOTO BY KAMAU MAICHUHIE.

Residents and traders in Juja held demonstrations over poor road network. The protesters said the poor road network in the area had affected their businesses and lives.

They said Juja-Mirimaini-Mung'etho and Kimbo-Murera-Matangi-ini roads had been made worse by  heavy rains that have been pounding the area.

They said they could not understand why both the county and national governments had failed to fix the road network. "The deplorable road network has taken a toll on us. We can no longer do business or move effectively. We pay taxes like other Kenyans and deserve better roads just like other areas," said Samuel Kimani, a resident.

Traders said the roads had dealt their businesses a blow. They said in the last few weeks, they had counted losses amounting to over Sh100 million in terms of lost sales.

"We are counting millions in terms of losses. It is not possible to transport out products due to the bad roads. Our trucks and vehicles get stuck in the mud and we can no longer handle the ballooning maintenance cost of our vehicles," said Amos Karanja, a manager at Pulp & Paper Ltd.

They accused the county government of laxity in addressing their plight, saying despite collecting millions of shillings from them in levies, the county had blatantly refused to repair the roads. "We have now been forced to resort to using our own resources and have so far used Sh6 million to repair the roads," said Karanja.

A quarry proprietor, Dhruv Shah, said he had been forced to lay off 250 workers in his 10 quarry sites in the area. But an official from the county's Roads department said they were waiting for the rains to subside to commence repairing the roads.