Tatu City residents, investors up in arms over poor services
A row is brewing between residents and investors in Tatu City, Kiambu county over alleged discrimination by project owners.
Residents living at the 5,000-acre residential complex with homes, schools, businesses, a shopping district and a medical clinic, are up in arms with the Special Economic Zone management over what they say is unsafe water, being denied access to the internet, delays in approval of houses and exorbitant power supply rates.
Residents living at Lifestyle Heights, an estate within the multi-billion shilling facility, fear that there could be an outbreak of diseases, including cholera, because of suspect water sources.
For the past three weeks, residents say, there have experienced a serious shortage and contamination of water.
Some of the tenants who did not want to be named for fear of being victimised, said Tatu City has been supplying salty water that they cannot use to cook or do laundry.
“It’s been quite challenging for us in the last three weeks. Personally, I’ve been receiving salty water that is in most cases also smelly. As a result, I’ve been forced to use distilled water which is quite expensive,” a resident who sought anonymity told journalists.
Power costs
The residents, some of who claimed to have developed health problems such as skin discoloration and stomach pains, urged investigative bodies to probe Tatu City for supplying them with contaminated water.
They said they had already petitioned the Water Services Regulatory Board (Wasreb) to intervene.
According to residents, the Special Economic Zone management has also locked out electricity and internet providers on the grounds that the services can only be supplied by the Tatu City management.
Racial bias
“In all cases these services are twice as expensive as those in non-SEZ areas. Electricity costs for example cost twice as much in Tatu than it would cost in the nearby Kamiti area. Tatu has also blocked internet providers from setting up shop. Tatu’s internet is so slow and has frequent down time. You can barely make a call without it dropping,” a resident told journalists.
They further called on the government to protect Kenyan investors against racism by Tatu City owners insisting that there has been a great deal of white privilege at the city in Ruiru Constituency.
“Foreign companies, particularly American firms, enjoy SEZ benefits. Kenyan firms on the other hand are subjected to colonial treatment,” an investor in the facility said.
Lifestyle Heights manager Fred Ndegwa said their tenants had repeatedly complained of lack of water for weeks and when they get the commodity, it’s usually smelly and salty.
Ndegwa blamed the situation on Tatu City management which is contracted to ensure supply of water, electricity and other utilities.
“Tatu City is supposed to provide residents here with water, electricity, a good sewerage system and ensure that everything is running to capacity as it should. This is, however, not the situation nowadays as Tatu management has been supplying residents with salty water. We have a binding contract with them in which they promised to provide us with fresh water but we are now consuming saline water,” stated Ndegwa.
“Let us be allowed to bring in competitive service providers to improve service delivery to those living here,” added Ndegwa.
Residents and investors have called on the government to suspend Tatu City SEZ status.
Efforts to get a response from Tatu City management for a comment did not succeed.
