Kimunya rules out pay slum residents

Kibera and Mukuru slums resident in Nairobi, who will be rolocated to pave way for the planned expansion of the railway line will not be compensated, Transport minister Amos Kimunya has said. He said the residents will be moved and a wall constructed to protect the railway line. “The land belongs to Kenya Railways and discussions have already taken place with persons to be relocated already identified,” said Kimunya.

An initial plan to move Kibera and Mukuru slum dwellers for the planned expansion met with resistance. The public outcry from the residents almost derailed the project, with financiers threatening to pull out if the relocation was not done in a structured and humane way. Kenya Railways is set to spend more than Sh3 billion to relocate to 10,000 identified families in the two slums to other places.

Kimunya added that his ministry and KR will conduct the process in a humane way.The two slums poses the biggest challenge to the expansion plan because of the interdependence of the structures near the railway line and the rest of the settlement. The businesses near the railway are the lifeline of the slum dwellers.