Forgotten Garissa villagers protest blackout, network challenges

Despite being just 30km away from Garissa town and only 10km from one of Kenya's biggest solar power plants in Raya, the area has not had power for the past five months.

This is after the only transformer in the area broke down.

This, in addition to poor telecommunications network signals from Safaricom and Airtel, has made the residents feel forgotten.

They say for 40 years, since the creation of the sublocation, they have had to travel for 30km to access network at an area called Sankuri or alternatively climb trees.

The residents said this has negatively impacted their daily communication, business operations as well as emergency services.

They held peaceful demonstrations to express the challenges, accusing their MP Abdi Shurie for sleeping on the job.

Led by Mohamed Shale, an elder, they said lack stable power and communication networks has affected them socially and economically.

“It is very unfortunate that we are gathered here as residents of Balich to complain about these two very important things. We are still living in stone age. To us civilisation is yet to arrive,” he said.

Shale said their efforts to get Shurie to intervene and push for the two issues have not been successful.

“We have been to the Kenya Power office in Garissa as well as to the Safaricom office but they all say one thing, the initiative should be spearheaded by our MP. They say the MP should write a letter to them requesting for transformer and a booster,” he said.

"Unfortunately, we have never seen him since we elected him. Calls on his number also never go through."

Shale said they have lost expectant mothers referred to Garissa due to lack of communication.

Issa Farah said they also lack health facilities, good schools and road networks.

“The advent of smartphones massively impacted the immediacy of information exchange thus making phones the epitome of indispensable technology in the 21st century. However for us we are still stuck in the old century,” he said.

Farah said the local health centre cannot store vaccines since they require refrigeration.

He said even businesses have been unable to process digital transactions or communicate with suppliers, leaving them with the only option keeping cash.

Abdi Mou Shurie a student at Mt Kenya University said lack of mobile phone network has affected his studies, saying he is unable to study or do exams online.

“My parents are now forced to rent a house for me in Garissa whenever I have online exams or lectures which sometimes takes weeks. Things would have been different with a stable mobile network in our area. This is money my parents could save,” he said.