Nyamira County Commissioner Onesmas Kyatha has warned residents against vandalism of various infrastructure put up by government meant to benefit them and encroachment into government land saying they risked arrest.
Kyatha gave the warning after numerous complaints by affected residents, officers from Kenya Power over vandalism and theft of power lines including power billing gadgets and road engineers supervising construction of various roads who complained about encroachment on road reserves by residents ignoring demarcations and beacons placed to clearly indicate where the boundaries were.
‘Residents have decided to cultivate various crops and construct permanent structures on road reserves endangering the stability of the road structure and increasing chances of road accidents because of obstructions which hinder proper visibility by drivers and other road users,’ CC Kyatha observed.
‘We have issued enough warnings and we shall now swing into immediate action. This is because residents have refused to
heed to our requests not to encroach on any government spaces. We shall arrest any resident who will refuse to move out of demarcated road reserves because their actions weaken the road structures which starts to readily wear out and makes it cumbersome for drivers to navigate through,’ the County Commissioner stated.
The officer pointed out that power outage every evening in the County has become a necessary evil caused by illegal power connections, vandalisms and stealing of bulbs, posts, power lines.
Kyatha noted that the illegal connections and vandalism has affected all power users giving officers from Kenya Power a hard time in reconnecting and reconstruction of new power lines which contributes to their losses while in the business of lighting our homes.
‘You should be at the forefront in protecting any infrastructure put up by the government to offer us services, make our lives bearable and enable us conduct our daily businesses with ease. It will not be business as usual because we have started an
operation of arresting anyone who will be caught or reported stealing or vandalizing any infrastructure constructed to help residents and be presented before the court of law because of their criminal acts,’ Commissioner Kyatha cautioned.
Source: Kenya News Agency