Traders count heavy losses after yet another Gikomba fire

Traders are counting losses after a fire broke out yet again at the Gikomba Market.

The fire engulfed a section of Gikomba Market near the mitumba section.

The cause of the early morning inferno is yet to be established.

The fire is said to have begun almost 30 minutes after midnight at the section along the Molo Line area known to many as Ghorofani.

Despite the fire having started at 12am, it still continued till early morning.

Some of the traders blamed the Nairobi Metropolitan Service and City Hall for arriving at the scene late, after witnessing their source of income being razed to ashes.

"The fire started past midnight and traders who had stocked their bale of clothes did not manage to save them..until now the fire is still burning despite NMS coming to the rescue," said a trader.

"We are used to the fire and the government promised to get a solution but we are getting losses every year," another trader told the Star.

The traders lamented that the fire came in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic when they were trying to adjust to the economic hardship.

Attempts to reach out to City Hall's Director in charge of Fire were futile as he couldn't give an update on the incidence.

"I cannot comment on the issue until you get cleared by the Director in charge of Communication at City Hall," he said.

City Hall's Director of Communications Beryl Okundi did not respond to the Star calls.

Mysterious fires in the market are a norm and no one has been arrested in the recurrent fires.

Seeking to solve the solution, Nairobi County Government and the National Government sorted to built a new five-storey Gikomba market to end all the fire incidences.

At a cost of Sh3 billion, the market will have at least 525 stalls across all five floors.

However, the annual Gikomba fires appear to be a "routine" that has not been solved.

The last Gikomba fire was in February last year where the mitumba section was again affected

On April 10, 2019, more than 2,000 structures were razed as a section of Gikomba Market was gutted by fire.

In 2018, the market experienced three fire cases which led to President Uhuru Kenyatta calling for investigations into the fires.

In June that year, 15 people died and at least 60 injured when a section of the market dealing with timber and clothes was burnt.

The same year in October, another fire had been experienced in the market.

In 2017, the Gikomba market caught fire twice on October 6 and September 10.

In 2015, fire also broke out twice in the market in the months of May and June.

The fire was also experienced twice in 2014 in the months of May and October and once in the month of March in 2012.

It had been said that loan defaulters at times set shops on fire and tell banks they lost the property.

As a result, the businessmen burn them to claim insurance.

It had also been mentioned that the traders themselves burn the stalls to evict tenants and charge them higher rent.

Edited by D Tarus