Tearful Jamhuri Day for Nairobi residents

By OSCAR OBONYO

It was a tearful Jamhuri Day for hundreds of residents in parts of Donholm, Tena and Umoja Innercore estates in Nairobi after their electric appliances valued at over Sh3 million went up in smoke owing to electric power surge.

The affected residents woke up with celebratory enthusiasm to monitor President Kibaki preside over his last public holiday function as Head of State on television.  

“Being a public holiday, we were all indoors and watching television with some listening to music. Some of us were looking forward to the last message from the President.

But our holiday was totally ruined by the destruction of our equipment,” lamented Roseline Mulula, whose television set and DVD machine were burnt because of the power upsurge.

Shadrack Kibet was winding up some urgent project work on his laptop when the upsurge occurred.

He lost his Toshiba laptop – a most valuable asset for his kind of work. Similarly, Katumbie Mutiso mourned his home theatre valued at 56,000 that he bought only recently.  

Speaking to The Standard on behalf of the more than 90 affected households, George Okoth attributed the tragedy to “utter carelessness” by the Kenya Power staff.

“They spent a whole day trying to relocate a transformer that was partly on the road, but in the process did a rushed and shoddy job that has caused these people millions of shillings,” he said.