Makueni, Kenya: Property worth millions of shillings was destroyed in a mysterious fierce inferno that reduced a section of Makueni County Assembly to ashes.
The fire gutted down the county assembly chambers, the offices of the Speaker, Clerk, a boardroom and the adjacent offices.
The cause of the 3.30am fire incident remained unknown as we went to the press with the assembly speaker Stephen Ngelu saying investigations have been launched.
Fire flames were still billowing from the burning building by the time we went to press owing to lack of firefighting facilities.
Security sources differed with the speaker on where the fire started with the former saying the fire began from either the office of the Mr. Ngelu or the clerk while the speaker said it began from the assembly.
Ngelu told the standard that security officers guarding the premises said they saw smoke emanating from the assembly chambers and raised the alarm.
But a senior security officer who did not wish to be named said fire reportedly started from either the speaker or the clerks offices before spreading to the assembly and the adjacent offices.
“We are yet to establish the cause of the fire whose damage I can only say is huge for now”, said Ngelu adding they would wait for investigations to know what caused the fire.
The Speaker said the fire would have been put off at the early stages if the county had firefighting equipment.
“People just watched helplessly as the fire raged. The entire county has no equipment to fight fires”, added the speaker.
He however confirmed that the assembly Mace was retrieved to safety along with a few other important documents.
Majority Chief Whip and Kiteta/Kisau Ward MCA Jackson Ngovi described the incident as unfortunate and said they would be forced to look for temporary chambers for the assembly.
“With the Mace, which is the authority of the house safe, we shall look for an alternative chamber to conduct house business”, he told the standard on telephone from Mombasa where MCAs and the Executive were meeting over supplementary budget and other county issues.
Residents rushed to social media with diversity of reactions with some wondering how a whole county government did not have an emergency response unit.
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Others lamented the incident but said they were optimistic the tragedy will not affect service delivery to wananchi.
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