Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu has urged people who have built on riparian land to ‘ensure the rivers move’ to prevent their houses from being demolished.
In a rather hilarious speech which made rounds on social media Sunday evening through Monday morning, the governor faulted the National Environment Management Authority officials for the ongoing demolitions in Nairobi and instead argued that the rivers should be diverted to avoid such property being destroyed.
“I don’t support the demolitions. Things should be weighed out; if your house is near a river, you should be the one to ensure that the river is redirected, and the costs of doing that met by the house owners. Demolishing houses is not a solution, it is such a big loss,” the governor said.
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The sentiments by Mr Waititu comes in the wake of heightened demolitions along Nairobi Rover’s riparian land which started early last week, and has since seen destruction of high end buildings in Nairobi, including a petrol station, two shopping malls and Oshwal Centre.
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National Environment Management Authority (Nema) communications officer Evans Nyabuto said the demolitions will continue and the exercise will move back to Kileleshwa to bring down some walls that had been left by the owners.
He, however, stopped short of mentioning more areas that will be demolished today saying there are certain areas the agency cannot pre-empt their activity for security reasons.
“The demolitions will continue for the week but there are places that if we say that tomorrow we are going to demolish you find hostile people on the ground or they quickly go to court for an injunction so it hampers our operations,” said Mr Nyabuto yesterday, adding that demolition of the Ukay Mall in Westlands will also continue.