Malaba residents have asked the Kenya Revenue Authority to employ local youths as security guards, janitors and canteen attendants in their town office.
In a petition submitted to KRA station manager Kimani Kang’ethe, the residents said the agency was discriminating against locals in its hiring of workers.
They said KRA should employ the support staffers from among them as a way of giving back to the community.
The residents argued that the agency’s presence in Malaba town must directly benefit them.
“On services that require manual labour such as security personnel, cleaning services and canteen attendants, we ask that the Authority employs the services of locally available labour,” the five-page document reads in part.
“Our community has adequate, ready to learn and experienced personnel who will offer better services to the authority.”
The residents said residents of the town have been denied a chance to provide cleaning and security services to KRA. Firms outside Busia have for long been favoured to provide such services, they said.
The petitioners also want KRA to implements corporate social responsibility activities in health, education, environment, talent development and conduct anti-drug and substance abuse campaigns.
“Schools in Malaba and in the larger Teso North subcounty are in a sorry state with a number of classes in these schools condemned,” the petitioners said.
“We the people of Malaba request that the authority constructs a one-storey tuition and ablution block in Amoni Primary School in Malaba.”
On environmental conservation, they asked KRA to consider putting up toilets along the Northern Corridor for truck drivers to use.
“There are no toilet facilities they can use along the corridor and often times they use bushes along the highway as alternative waste disposal centres. This poses a great health risk to persons living within the environs.”
They also asked KRA to improve the standards of health facilities in Teso North subcounty.
(edited by o. owino)
