Amid a growing population, plan on to give Kisii town a new look

Kisii town demolitions

Police throw tear gas to disperse traders protesting in Kisii town. Authorities are on mission to re-organise Kisii town in a bid to restore its lost glory.

Photo credit: Ondari Ogega | Nation Media Group

It has been a difficult year for most traders in Kisii town. The county government has been on a mission to demolish their premises, ostensibly because they are in the wrong locations.

The devolved unit has been conducting the demolitions in phases and county enforcement officers and police pounce on the traders when least expected.

Running battles, teargas, screams and pelting of stones are some of the scenes which have been witnessed in the busy, small and congested town.

Ugly scenes of men and women being dragged and bundled into waiting police vans are common and this has raised a lot of condemnation from the public.

In the most recent incident, angry residents attacked a group of enforcement officers before they fled for dear life.

Back in full force

But the officers came back in full force, pouring out their wrath on the traders as they clobbered and bundled them into their vans with the assistance of police officers.

Kisii Central MCA Kefa Mrefu also got it rough when he tried to intervene for the traders.

He was harassed by some of the junior county askaris before their seniors intervened.

“I am very angry because of what has been done to me today. They have roughed me up,” said Mr Mrefu.

He, however, said he will not stop fighting for the rights of the traders.

Mr Mrefu had to flee the scene to save himself from the wrath of the officers.

Covid-19 effects

He said the demolitions came at a time when many of the traders were struggling with the effects of Covid-19 on the economy.

"This was ill-thought and is in bad taste to destroy the livelihoods of people who eke out a livelihood from small businesses like these," he said.

Traders engaged the police in running battles as others threw stones at the officers who responded by lobbing tear gas canisters.

“They have vandalised our property,” said one of the affected traders.

Others lamented that mobile phones and other valuable investments were destroyed.

They said it is double tragedy given that they have very limited options at this time when the Covid-19 effects are still being felt.

The traders accused the county government of being insensitive to their plight. They lamented that there was no justification to destroy people’s investments in the name of re-organising the town. 

The county government has been trying to re-organise the town by relocating some traders within the town centre.

Population pressure

But some of the traders are adamant, saying they have not been given alternative premises.

The demolitions targeted those doing businesses on the backstreets and other illegally constructed shanties within the town centre.

Built at the base of Manga ridge and in the valley below Nyanchwa hills, the town has experienced population pressure in the past 15 years, with booming businesses that ranges from hawking to high-end hotels.

Kisii town is one of the poorly planned but fast-growing metropolis in Kenya, struggling with congestion, very poor drainage and lack of land for expansion.

The town is sandwiched between Manga escarpment (to the northwest), Kiong’anyo hill (to the northeast) and Nyanchwa hill (to the south). 

Due to its geographical location, the town’s streets get easily washed away during heavy rainfall, which is common in the area. The downstream tilts dangerously toward the southwest, stretching all the way to Suneka, near Rongo in Migori County.

As a result of its topographical location, the town has exponentially experienced congestion, which is compounded by the poorly planned buildings.

Planning problems

Failure by the physical planning department to enforce architectural standards has seen some buildings being put up haphazardly, leading to intermittent collapse of storey structures where lives are lost.

Additionally, the poor planning has left no room for emergency interventions, especially in events of fire incidents.

Early in his leadership, Kisii Governor James Ongwae introduced the County Integrated Development Plan, which was intended to address these planning problems.

But he has often cited space challenges as the reason for not implementing it fully.

Besides the squeezed area, space for parking is limited, forcing people to park in the backstreets.

The unregulated boda boda business in the town has brought in hundreds of riders who rarely observe traffic rules, making the town a chaotic scene of madness. The riders, who often use the wrong side of the road, have become a danger even to pedestrians.

Although the town prides itself with expansive growth despite having no industrial investments, economic experts warn that competition for the limited resources, such as land, threatens the future stability of the commercial town.

Additionally, the lack of sufficient room for expansion throws the town’s potential into uncertainty because there is no space for everyone who wants to invest, let alone put up an abode.

Mr Ongwae says it is a unique town with many challenges due to its high population and shrinking land sizes.

“Though the town has experienced many development strides, a lot still needs to be done to transform it to a full municipality,” said Mr Ongwae.

The town, with a population of more than 200,000 residents, faces serious challenges as the land has continued to diminish.

Restore lost glory

It is in this background that the Kisii Municipality, in partnership with the county leadership, decided to embark on a programme to re-organise the town and restore its lost glory.

But even with the traders’ agony, Kisii Municipal Manager Nahashon Ongeri has always maintained that the businesspeople became stubborn and refused to move to the sites designated for them.

"We are engaged in more than just the effort of bringing sanity. Currently, the drainages are clogged up because of the garbage carelessly disposed off, causing unnecessary blockages," said Mr Ongeri.

Structures targeted for demolition include those erected on drainage areas, verandas and walkways as the county embarks on re-organising the town.

The county said the buildings are on undesignated public reserves while others were constructed on top of sewer lines.

Mr Ongeri said they are in the process of re-organising the town and boda boda operators will be next in line.

Give town a new look

“As a board we are determined to give this town a new look. I am calling upon locals to cooperate with us in this exercise” he said.

In 2019, more than 300 houses were destroyed by a government multi-agency task force within Kisii Municipality targeting buildings built on riparian land and road reserves.

Governor Ongwae gazetted a charter that paved the way for the local county capital (Kisii town) to be upgraded to a municipality in 2019.

The municipality covers 70 square-kilometres with a population ranging between 70,000 and 249,000.

The World Bank has injected Sh167 million to help finance three projects within Kisii Municipality.

The money is helping the county put up a fire station, walkways and a proper drainage system.

World Bank Senior Urban Specialist Abdu Muwonge said during a recent visit in Kisii County that they were impressed with the progress being made in terms of infrastructural upgrade.

A report by the United Kingdom-based Sustainable Urban Economic Development in 2019 ranked Kisii town among the 12 fastest-growing municipalities in Kenya.