More than 100 youths protested on Friday over delayed payments of their wages by the Machakos County government after conducting a five-day water mapping survey. The youth, who had been contracted as enumerators for the days to conduct water mapping household survey in Mavoko sub-county, blocked the road leading to the sub-county’s headquarters few metres from its main entrance for close to two hours, interrupting access to the offices, before the local administration intervened. The enumerators said the county government owed them between Sh5,200 and Sh6,300, claiming some had worked for five days and others six days without pay. Their spokesperson, Anne Kyalo, said they had waited for the payments for three weeks and camped outside the offices for two weeks, all in vain. We have been visiting the sub-county offices to check on fate of the payments for the last two weeks now in vain,” said Kyalo. Kyalo said the sub-county’s administration claimed there were delays in Safaricom’s Mpesa services systems due to high number of transactions involved in paying the enumerators. The youth said they opted for the demonstrations as a last resort to push for the payments, arguing the county government had taken them for a ride. The protestors said some of them had  doors of their houses already closed by landlords due to delays to pay rent in time. Mavoko sub-county administrator Moses Muthusi said averagely 100 youths out of 2,590 who participated in the exercise had not been paid. Muthusi said his office was doing everything possible to ensure they received their payments soonest to avert the situation.

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