Inside Mukuru residents' manifesto presented to Kenya Kwanza

Residents of the Mukuru informal settlements have presented their self-made manifesto to the Kenya Kwanza Alliance.  

The manifesto includes the challenges and solutions the residents want delivered if the coalition’s Nairobi gubernatorial candidate Johnson Sakaja is elected in office.

Mukuru slums, which hosts almost half a million people, is divided into five areas: Kwa Njenga, Kwa Reuben, Fuata Nyayo, Pipeline and Viwandani.

The area was in August 2017 declared as a Special Planning Area by Nairobi county.

That declaration put a stop to any further developments in the area for a two-year period until a Mukuru Integrated Development Plan is produced.

When Nairobi Metropolitan Services was established in 2020, it extended the SPA period for two years.

Concerns have been raised by the Mukuru people that the SPA has never been tabled and approved by the Nairobi county assembly.

As a result, they are urging the next governor of Nairobi to table the document for approval.

The three settlements  of Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Kwa Reuben and Viwandani are home to about 400,000 people.

“Our settlements have many problems. There is no waste collection and most garbage in our area is dumped into the Ngong River. The problems of poor schools, unemployment, poverty and the lack of adequate water and sanitation services are pressing and need urgent action," reads the manifesto.

Despite having a school population of 122,000, the three slums are only served by six public schools.

“This number of public schools is against a total of 182 unregistered and unregulated education facilities that are dilapidated and often provide very poor education,” the manifesto says. 

To address this, the residents want the Kenya Kwanza government to construct at least 10 new schools within the three areas.

On sanitation, only one per cent of residents in three Mukuru slums have access to home toilets, with an average of 547 households sharing public toilets.

Pit latrines are the most common type of toilet in the area which residents say are poorly maintained.

To fix the situation, the residents want the Kenya Kwanza government to commit that they will be allocation of funds to ensure the necessary trunk and lateral sewers are built so that homes can be connected to sewer.

As an informal settlement, access to water is considered as one of the top challenges faced by residents.

The manifesto says that the slum people purchase about three 20-litre containers of water per household in a day at a cost of Sh5 to Sh20 per jerrycan.

“Yet other city residents pay a flat rate of Sh206 for consumption of 0-6 cubic metres of water.

"We therefore pay 250 per cent more, per cubic metre for poorer quality water than other city residents,” reads the document.

The residents want the next government to ensure resources are allocated for the construction of the necessary infrastructure to ensure homes are connected with water.

Last year, about 15,000 households were forcibly evicted from their homes in the slums where property was lost and schools and other amenities also brought down.

To address the issue, the residents want the National Land Commission and Ministry of Land to declare Mukuru a public land to enable proper upgrading in the area.

Sakaja, who signed the manifesto,  pledged that, if elected, a two-year notice will be issued before any evictions in the county.

If possible, he added, the people affected will be allocated alternative space before demolition occurs.

“These incidents where people leave their homes to go to work and return to find no home, or worse, are woken up in the middle of the night by bulldozers should and must come to an end,” Sakaja said.

On health, the residents said in their manifesto they were satisfied with NMS's construction of new hospitals in the area.

NMS director general Mohammed Badi early this year, however, admitted the hospitals lacked some medication because they had been relying on donations.

Badi said the availability of drugs in health facilities depended on several factors, including budget access.

(edited by Amol Awuor)