Leaders, residents call out KeNHA after floods cut off Garissa-Madogo section again

Angry leaders and residents of Garissa and Madogo have hit out at the engineers and officials from the Kenya National Highway Authority[KeNHA] accusing them of doing a shoddy job on a section of the Garissa-Madogo road.

They were referring to the recent repair at the Kona Punda section along the Garissa-Madogo road.

On Wednesday, excited pedestrians and motorists could not hide their joy as KeNHA opened the road for use after a five-day repair. The road had been rendered impassable for three weeks.

However barely a day after the repair the floods washed away the section again.

On Thursday afternoon flood waters from upstream started making their way to farms near the road.

By evening the road was flooded as desperate motorists and pedestrians rushed to cross over to either side.

On Friday morning the situation had worsened with police from both sides blocking motorists and bodaboda operators from crossing over.

Only pedestrians were crossing on foot in the flood waters that were at a knee height. The situation remained the same for the better part of the day.

Desperate members of the public wishing to cross over from either side could be seen staring at the flood waters.

The few available boats took advantage of the situation to charge Sh500 per person.

Hundreds of vehicles were parked on both sides as they watched tracks filled with marram offloading while an excavator tried to level the damaged section.

Speaking to the press at the Kona punda section, Madogo MCA Juma Ali Dido hit out at the KeNHA officials for allegedly subcontracting the job.

“KeNHA had all the time to ensure that this section of the road is fixed properly unfortunately the person who was subcontracted messed and the result is what you can see,” he said.

“I am not an engineer but what I know is when you are constructing a road you must make sure that you create waterways by erecting several box culverts, unfortunately, that was not done."

Dido said that residents from the region who depend on the road that is the gateway to the North Eastern have gone through untold suffering including having the prices of food items and other goods hiked.

He further hit out the Kenya Power and Lightening Company for allegedly dragging its feet to restore power to Madogo noting that it is now a month since they experienced a blackout after electricity poles were felled by the flash floods.

He said that this had hurt businesses that depend on power as well as increased insecurity cases.

He alleged that numerous appeals to the relevant authorities to have the issue sorted out have fallen on deaf ears.

Tawane Mohamed said that it was disheartening to see people subjected to a lot of suffering saying that someone must be held accountable.