More than a million people in Nakuru face an imminent water shortage following a vicious court battle between a director of the Nakuru Water and Sanitation Services Company (Nawassco) and the firm.
The water firm continues to grapple with a Sh14 million court award to Geoffrey Makana Asanyo, who was reinstated as director after his dismissal from the company was faulted early this year by the Nakuru industrial court.
Yesterday, the industrial court sitting in Nakuru ordered Saddabri Auctioneers return the property worth millions of Nawassco which they attached last week pending hearing of an application which has been filed by the firm in court through its lawyer, Prof Tom Ojienda.
Justice Stephen Radido gave the auctioneering company one day to return the property. Last week, the same court issued an order directing the Nakuru OCPD to provide Saddabri Auctioneers with police protection as they attached Nawassco’s property to recover the debt which arose from the case which Asanyo had filed in court.
The court’s deputy registrar, SPM Maroro Nyakundi, granted Asanyo the orders to attach the property two days after previous orders temporarily stopping the attachment lapsed on October 11.
Justice Byram Ongaya reinstated Asanyo in March this year alongside six other directors who had been ousted including board chairman Ibrahim Mohamed Osman, Joyce Akongo Odour, Stephen Muiruri, Wilson Mungai and GK Mungania. The judge ruled that the removal of Asanyo and five other directors who represented other stakeholders at the board was unconstitutional.
Asanyo, a former Nakuru Kanu branch chairman, then moved to court determined to recover the money awarded to him by the court.
The respondents in the petition, among them Nawassco, Nakuru County and Mbugua, were on September 11 ordered by senior principal magistrate Felix Kombo to jointly deposit 10 per cent of the amount (Sh1.5 million) as security.
Kombo had then extended the postponement for payment for 30 days, pending the appeal for the review of the Sh14 million suit cost, which lapsed on October 11.
Asanyo’s lawyer, Kipkoech Ng’etich, yesterday said the respondents have been asked to meet the cost of the suit but are taking the court in circles.
The county government of Nakuru, which holds majority shares in the water company, has also been caught in the middle of the crisis that is threatening to cripple water services in Nakuru town and its environs.