Kilifi County has shut down a gas plant site at Vipingo area in Kilifi North Sub County over human rights violation and possible negative environmental effects.
The County Executive Committee Member (CECM) for Lands and Physical Planning Jane Kamto led the operations that also discovered at least 50 employees of Indian descent with no work permits.
According to Mrs Kamto, the Multi- billion-shilling Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage terminal plant owned by Centum and being constructed by Lake Gas Limited had violated all laws concerning construction and had mutilated the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) recommendations issued by the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) by encroaching on the riparian land.
“We are here to close this plant which according to our department which is control development department, we don’t have any access of any documentation concerning this plant of Lake Gas limited. We are here to close it because they have not come for approval, we are not even sure of what they are doing here and residents have complained of environmental pollution,” she said.
She added that the contractor was issued with a close order in February this year but they disregarded the notice and continues with constructions.
“We are imaging it is going to be a gas plant just by seeing and we are worried about the gas explosion cases that have been happening recently in the country and we are here to offer our people security. As you can see there is a pipe headed to the sea which implies that they might be planning to discharge waste into the sea and this plant has to be closed permanently,” she added.
Lake Gas Limited ground manager Paul Ochieng however defended the on-going construction saying that they were late of target since the construction was to be completed by April this year.
“The plant started in March last year and we were to finish it by April this year so that it be operational in June this year. We have adhered to all regulations of the land but we shall also obey the orders of the county government until we reach a conclusion,” he said.
He also defended the alien employees saying that they were professionals brought in to work on areas that the Kenyan employees are not professional at.
“We have approvals from the national and county government agencies and the reasons to why the county government has issued us a letter and we shall look into it so that we understand what they need us to comply with. The site is now closed and we urge the county government to allow the foreigners to stay within the site premises until we secure their air tickets to India,” he said.
Locals led by Joseph Kenga said that they were being mistreated in terms of wages and poor working conditions were the norm.
“We work in difficult conditions but we are paid peanuts while our Indian counterparts earn 1000 times what we earn. I hope they will change that too when they reach a conclusion with the county government,” said Kenga
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