Tetu Residents protest cancellation of a 52km road under construction

By Loise Wambugu

Residents of Tetu constituency  in Nyeri County today held  peaceful demonstrations  protesting the  cancellation of a 52 kilometre road  by The Kenya National highways Authority which is  part of  a 540 kilometre Mau Mau road under construction.

The residents who included farmers ,matatu operators and business community said that the construction of the road estimated to cost 4.5 billlion is an economic game changer to the constituency since it links them with Nyandarua county and will halve the cost of doing business.

They said that  it will cost them 45 minutes to travel from Ihithe in Tetu to Ndunyu Njeru in Nyandarua county instead of three hours they are currently using to travel via Nyahurur route.

Kenha cancelled the tender for the construction of the road following an advisory by National environment management authority and The Kenya forest service  who claim that the road will interfere with ecosystem within the Abadare forest .

“We the residents of Tetu demand that the construction of this road be reinstated against were the plans , for  NEMA and KFS  to Claim  it’s interfering with the Abadare Forest  ecosystem it is self defeating since the road has been in existence for all those years, what we are demanding is just tarmacking of this facility to enable us do business with our neighboring counties such as  Nyandarua  inline with bottom up policy of His Excellency the President “said Alex Gathii.

Gathii who is a renowned environmentalist  having worked with greenbelt movement said that the road will not interfere with the ecosystem since the residents  will commit   themselves to plant 2000 tress each year to  mitigate environmental impact if any caused by the road passing through the Forest.

“We will undertake to plant trees,asl long as the construction of this road continues ,it will  open up businesses for us and we therefore  cannot afford to loose this golden opportunity that will ensure our cost of living goes down ” said Gathii.

William Githinji the chairman of the local business  community said it was regrettable for some individuals to cancel the road project  that would have far reaching economic gains to the people of  Tetu .

“As a business community we feel offended by this move ,our constituency has no banks or a petrol stations We hopes once this road was  done we were sure  such facilities would have sprung”said Githinji.

Another resident Paul Mbogo noted that they had already  collected over 20,000  signature’s to petition bodies opposed to the construction of the road .

We have in our possession these signature’s which we will  file  a petition  to KFS,KENHA and NEMA to register our displeasure over the cancellation of this tender today in Nyeri town  ” said Mbogo.