Railway demolitions leave 3,000 traders without jobs
Traders salvage some of what remained after their businesses were demolished on October 11, 2020 in Nakuru.
Over 3,000 jobs have been lost after properties worth millions were demolished yesterday in Nakuru town.
All buildings on Kenya Railways land along Geoffrey Kamau Way were brought down on Saturday night.
Businesses stretching about 500 metres were demolished in a move meant to pave way for the rehabilitation of the Nairobi-Nakuru-Kisumu medium meter gauge railway and the Sh160 billion expansion of the Limuru-Nakuru road, which starts at Lironi all the way to Mau Summit.
The project is being undertaken under the Presidential Delivery Unit, with engineers from the Kenya Defence Forces providing the technical support.
On Saturday evening, business owners and tenants were frantically carting away their property in lorries to salvage the most they could.
People loot property during demolitions by the Kenya Railways Corporation on buildings sitting on its land along Geoffrey Kamau Way in Nakuru Town on October 11, 2020.
At Falcon petrol station, tankers were drawing fuel days after the station was marked for demolition.
A spot check by the Nation revealed that some of the businesses were barely a few months old while others were yet to open doors.
For instance, a newly built accommodation facility — by The Place Grill Park — was to be launched later this month.
The tenants had leases of between 15 to 30 years and had established mega businesses that included night clubs, hotels and accommodation, gas stations, car bazaars, a tyre centre among others.
Transport along the busy Nakuru - Eldoret highway was disrupted for hours as looters made away with iron sheets, metals, furniture, refrigerators among other properties despite heavy police presence.
In July, the government announced plans to rehabilitate the Sh3. 8 billion medium meter-gauge railway, noting that the Kenya Railways Corporation had issued a vacate notice to the business community.
However, the tenants maintained that they never received the vacate notice, saying they were given a six-hour notice to vacate their premises.
They noted that some people who introduced themselves as officials of the corporation told them to start packing their belongings on Saturday afternoon.
Short notice
“They were arrogant. They informed us that we had less than six hours to vacate or remove our properties from the premises. The notice was too short and we could not do anything much to salvage our properties,” a businessman said.
Investors pointed out that they had leased from 2012 and were shocked by the manner in which the contract had been terminated at a time when businesses were starting to pick after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Plans to expand the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway into a dual carriageway also informed the decision to fast-track the evictions.
Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a deal with the French government in which the highway will be expanded into a four-lane dual carriageway.
The project, which will be spearheaded under a Public-Private Partnership, is set to have a section of the highway within the lakeside town and take the design of an expressway.
That design would mean taking more space, which had been occupied by the demolished businesses.
The expansion of the Nairobi–Nakuru highway into a dual-carriage way, is aimed at improving the flow of traffic to western Kenya and beyond.
The perennial traffic jams experienced on the highway are expected to reduce drastically once the project is complete.
