Kirinyaga County Government has asked police to investigate cause of a fire that burnt business premises belonging to Jua Kali traders at Kerugoya town.
The County said that the cause of blaze which occurred at 2:00 am on Wednesday is still unknown.
Deputy Governor David Githanda said about 90 traders lost property of unknown value.
Githanda, who together with Kirinyaga Central Member of Parliament Gachoki Gitari visited the scene of the fire incident also assured the traders that the County Government has no intension of evicting them from the public land on which they had built the burnt down kiosks.
“The Governor has sent us here as a team to show solidarity and offer her support to you. The County has a very clear and elaborate process of relocating people from a public land and this includes issuance of written notices and we have not issued any notice to that effect,” he said.
The fire affected mechanics, spare part dealers and general merchandise traders.
He said during the time of the fire outbreak, the county government firefighters were responding to another blaze at Mwea sub-county and forcing had to seek help of another fire engine from the County Government of Nyeri.
Githanda who delivered Governor Anne Waiguru’s donation of Ksh 100,000 to the affected traders, asked those affected to put up new structures and resume business.
Kerugoya Jua Kali Chairman Jackson Maina said traders are yet to quantify the amount of losses they had incurred as a result of the blaze.
“We want to thank the County Government because they have said they have no plan to evict us from this land. We are also grateful of the support the governor and our MP has offered us to restart again,” said Maina.
On his part, MP Gitari termed the fire as an incident and asked politicians to stop seeking political mileage out of it.
“We are asking leaders to offer their support to the traders so that they can restart their businesses again instead of seeking political mileage out of it,” he said.
Gitari gave a donation of Ksh 80,000 and promised to mobilized more support for the traders to reconstruct their business premises.
