Affordable Housing to prioritise 40,000 families evicted from Riparian areas - Kindiki

The government is set to prioritise the settlement of the 40,000 people evicted from riparian reserves early this year to the Affordable Houses.

Speaking on Tuesday after touring different parts of the Nairobi rivers to verify compliance with orders for the removal of structures and settlements within the riparian corridors, Interior Cabinet Secretary Prof Kithure Kindiki said that the ongoing Affordable Housing project across the country would give consideration to those displaced during the El Nino rains.

Kindiki spoke even as he emphasised that the government would not sustain the push to ensure no structures are erected on Riparian reserves and river banks.

“All the 40,000 families that were affected by the measures taken to clear the riparian reserves will be prioritized in the allocation of affordable housing projects already underway in different parts of Nairobi,” said Kindiki.

“The Government will pursue to the logical end the national interest of reclamation, rehabilitation and regeneration of the Nairobi Rivers riparian reserve without any regard for parochial, political or ethnic distractions.”

Prof Kindiki underscored the need to preserve riparian corridors citing the deaths of over 300 people during the long rainy season early this year, saying that any attempts to contravene the order would be thwarted.

He noted that adherence to the order would also get rid of criminal hideouts and eliminate criminal activities such as illegal brewing done on river banks.

“Clearance, rehabilitation and protection of riparian reserves of the Nairobi Rivers Ecosystem and other affected watercourses in the country remains an irreversible national security project to protect the public from harm and for creation of resilience of the City of Nairobi to withstand climate change shocks in the likely event of future torrential rains and flooding,” he said.

“Besides ensuring public safety and climate shock resilience, this important project aims at boosting security for communities living around the Nairobi Rivers Ecosystem as well as eliminating the use of river banks as inaccessible hideouts for criminals or places for the manufacture, sale and consumption of illicit brews or the peddling of narcotic drugs.”

CS Kindiki at the same time fingered politicians against politicking the removal of people in riparian areas cautioning them against inciting the public.

“Last weekend’s attempts by some politicians to trivialize and politicise the historic project of preserving and protecting the Nairobi Rivers Ecosystem undermines the national ideals of providing dignified housing for all citizens and the protection of the public from dangers posed by climate shocks within sensitive ecosystems,” said Kindiki.

Having cleared Riparian reserves, the CS revealed that the next move would be unclogging and rehabilitation of natural waterways of the rivers as well as planting of trees under the ‘Climate Works Mtaani’ program which is set to commence across the country shortly.