Olkaria residents protest over poor roads, water scarcity

Members of the Maasai community block one of the roads leading to the geothermal rich area of Olkaria over water shortage and poor roads in the area. [Antony Gitonga, Standard]

Protests by Maasai community members over water shortages and poor roads paralysed operations in the geothermal-rich area of Olkaria, Naivasha, for hours.

For the better part of Tuesday morning, tens of workers heading to various companies were stranded as the community blocked the main road, accusing KenGen of their woes.

Over 200 families were relocated by KenGen 12 years ago to pave the way for one of its power plants, with the company committing to providing roads, water and jobs.

According to the community leader Peter Nkamasiai, the company had failed to keep its promise, leading to months of suffering for the families.

He said that all feeder roads were impassable, with fears that the situation could worsen once the El Niño rains kicked off in a couple of weeks.

“Kengen relocated us from our homes with the promise of addressing the issues of roads and water, but they have failed to do this,” he said.

He added that four villages in the Lapland area had no water for over a month after the supply was cut off without any warning or explanation from Kengen.

A woman leader, Margaret Ngamasai, said that women were walking over 10 km to find water for their homes and livestock.

She added that efforts to secure support from Kengen had failed and that they would continue to hold weekly demonstrations until their grievances were addressed.

“Some women have been forced to give birth in the houses as they cannot access hospitals, while others are sleeping dirty due to the water crisis,” she said.

A youth leader, Peter Shokoret, said they had written several letters to Kengen regarding job and career opportunities but received no response.

He said that despite the community hosting the power generation company, they had little to show for it as outsiders continued to benefit from job opportunities.

“We are giving Kengen ten days to act on our issues, which include job opportunities and provision of better roads and water, failure to which we shall paralyse operations again,” he warned.

Addressing the angry demonstrators, Kengen manager in charge of drilling, Engineer Evans Bett, attributed the water crisis to Kenya Power's failure to supply power to their generator.

“We agree that some roads are in poor conditions but we shall start rehabilitating them right away while other issues of jobs and internship will be addressed by the management,” he said.