Residents of Ngangarithi in Nyeri town in whose farms the town’s sewer line was built two years ago want to be paid..
They on Thursday said that the Nyeri Water and Sanitation Company destroyed their crops while installing the line. They company had promised to pay 112 residents Sh1.6 million.
Residents said only 50 people had received their money.
Resident Teresa Wangui said they attended a meeting in the presence of their chief at Kamakwa and were told to sign some documents with the promise of compensation.
“We were also advised to open bank accounts which we did, but two years down the line we have never received a coin,” Wangui said.
“Nyewasco should tell us who will pay us and when,” said another resident.
She said their food crops were destroyed when the line was being installed.
“We are calling on both the national and county governments to intervene and have Nyewasco pay us our money.”
But Nyewasco managing director Peter Gichaaga called on the residents to be patient and assured them that they will be paid.
Residents who featured in the first reports during the designing of the project, he said, were the ones who were paid in the first phase.
The report was prepared by World Bank and Nyewasco engineers.
“Paying the first batch was easy because valuation had been done and the people supposed to receive the payments were known,” he said.
But after the project started, some more farms which were not in the initial plan were affected with the sewer lines passing through them.
“These are the residents who are yet to be compensated. But we took their details and sent them to the sponsors [World Bank] of the project,” he said.
Nyewasco had also applied for a loan from the Cooperative Bank to fund part of the project.
Upon the completion of the project and after connecting the targeted customers, then the World Bank will also help Nyewasco pay 60 per cent of the loan, he said.
He said those who were not in the initial report could not have been paid in the first phase as the company had to prepare and present a report with the affected people before they can be given the green light to compensate them.
