Traders from Kebirigo market in Nyamira County have demanded compensation from the county government following a fire breakout which destroyed property worth millions of shillings.
Even with the cause of the fire still unknown, the angry traders have accused the county government of unpreparedness and demanded compensation for their lost property.
On Monday, the traders led by Mr Alphonce Mong’are also threatened to boycott remitting of taxes as a protest for poor services rendered by the county government in the township.
“The county government has never prepared to deal with such disasters despite have consistency in remitting taxes. It’s sad that the county doesn’t own fire engines like other counties. We demand that everyone is compensated failure to which we will boycott future remitting of taxes to the county government,” he said.
They gave the county government an ultimatum of one month to compensate them and called for constituting of an independent commission of enquiry to investigate the cause of fire outbreak.
“The county government has an obligation to compensate us and they only have a month to do so. If there is any commission of enquiry to be formed, it must be independent and constitute people conversant with this area. But it was an electrical fault meaning that the county government should talk to KPLC to facilitate compensation or we execute our plans,” he added.
Earlier on Monday, county Governor John Nyaragama had apologized to the traders and promised to have fire engines purchased by the county in a few weeks’ time even though he didn’t specify their number and rough estimates of their cost.