Residents of Kibisi village along the river Nzoa in Mbakalo ward in Tongaren constituency, Bungoma County have rejected a power generating project by Virunga Company in the area. The residents said that the Company had started a project in the area without holding a public participation exercise to consult them.
The irate residents held peaceful demos threatening to chase away the officers from the company next time they show up in the area. Grace Naliaka, a widow, said that the officials from the Company had come in the area twice this year and enacted stuff in their land without their knowledge.
Naliaka said that they are worried that they might lose their ancestral land to the project, “We have seen these guys coming here taking a few of our identity cards and title deeds without informing us what is happening, in case of a project we should be told openly what it entails,” she said.
Peter Amodoe said that he settled in the area in 1954 and he will not allow to be relocated to another area without being consulted. “We as Kibisi village residents have heard of these fellows called Virunga who have come here without any invitation. They are unfriendly, they don’t greet us and shockingly, they want to set up a power project without informing us what it is and have also been in our neighbouring constituency of Lugari where they have been chased away too,” he said, “We are calling upon the Bungoma County commissioner to tell us who these guys are and if they are genuine in whatever they want to do here and why they have not consulted us.”
They said that the officials have been sneaking secret in the area asking women to give them identity cards without telling us what is up. “There appears to be a sinister motive because we have an assistant chief here yet she is not aware they are using another assistant chief from another area,” he said, “We recently hosted Deputy President William Ruto here at Mbakalo yet he did not tell us about this project…”