Residents of Athi River town have faulted Machakos Government for failing to effectively manage sewerage thereby exposing them to Cholera outbreak.
They said several sewer lines in the town and its environs were leaking after they had busted two months ago.
The raw sewer is flowing on several streets in estates within the town and in its outskirts.
Led by their spokesman Daniel Mwasi, the residents including traders and boda-boda operators addressed the press in Athi River town on Thursday.
Mwasi said they had raised the issue with officials from the county government several months ago in vain.
“We suffer a lot while doing business in areas where there are sewerage leakages, our long time efforts to persuade the county government to have the lines fixed had been fruitless,” said Mwasi.
He said Sofia, Slaughter and Embakasi Estates within the town had lots of raw sewerage spilling in the open without being attended to by relevant authorities.
Mwasi said doing business in such areas had become difficult due to unhygienic stench emanating from the raw sewerage.
He said school going children from the estates had already developed skin diseases after playing in the raw sewerage.
Mwasi said some businessmen demolished their shops at Nyambura stage in the town to ease their access into them so as to remove wares after they were flooded with spilling raw sewerage.
He said the affected traders had closed businesses and moved their stock to safety.
“We are bitter with leadership of Machakos Government because it has never taken our complaints seriously,” said Mwasi.
He said an officer from Mavoko Water and Sewerage Company told them last week that the problem would be fixed within three hours.
Mwasi said the officer took them for a ride since nothing had been done to avert the situation.
He said they will soon stop remitting taxes to the county government if it fails to fix the lines within the next one week.
Mwasi said they will stage demonstration to the county government offices to express their grievances if status quo is not averted within the one week ultimatum.