Concern as slum growing inside Umoja Estate

Two ladies walk past PCEA UNITY Church. The church and adjacent buildings including a school stand in the middle high voltage electric lines. This area was not meant to be developed thus

Unplanned settlements are the crux of Nairobi City.

Apart from attracting other issues such as uncollected garbage, raw sewage spilling into the streets, and criminal elements hiding inbetween good people, slums are a hazard when it comes to infectious diseases such as cholera.

In Umoja Estate, there’s a high voltage electricity line that runs through it from Lunga Lunga road in industrial area. The power lines belongs to IBER Africa Power (EA) Limited.

In the past, about 10 to 15 years ago, the area under the powerlines was a place of sorting out plastic and metallic aster to be resold to industries in Nairobi, but with the need for space, churches have taken up this ‘empty space’.

Temporary mabati structures done the are of Umoja Estate under the IBER Africa electric lines. This might grown into a very big slum in five years akin to the one at Kayole Junction on Kangundo road

Though the county government allows temporary structures under the powerlines, there’s a church that has built permanent building near Umoja 2’s Peter Kibukosya Primary and Secondary School.

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Private school buildings have also cropped up in the area.

‘If the county government has deemed the are fit for construction of houses, then it should gazette that and have the powerlines redirected or put underground’, said a concerned resident who spoke to Umoja News.

The Mabati buildings are actually churches

There’s danger of damage to the powerline which can cause harm to those both beneath it and around it.

Those in the know say the new buildings coming up are ‘okayed’ by the area leadership and City Hall Nairobi.

It might take some time before order returns to Umoja Estate, maybe it would never and the areas beneath the IBER AFRICA powerlines would be occupied like the way they have done at Kayole Junction where a full state exits under the power lines.