Didacus Malowa, a journalist at TUKO.co.ke, brings over three years of experience covering politics and current affairs in Kenya.

An affordable housing project in Mombasa, for which President William Ruto conducted its groundbreaking, has yet to start, one and a half years on and has since been abandoned.

The expansive 8-acre field where about 2,000 affordable housing units, 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, and 3 bedroom units, were to be built is now filled with vegetation and has turned into a breeding ground for reptiles and other land creatures.

The groundbreaking of the project, dubbed Mzizima Affordable Housing Phase 1, located next to the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) in the Tononoka area, was done on Thursday, November 2nd, 2023.

This was evident during a site visit to the field on Friday, May 23, by members of the Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Roads and Housing during a fact-finding mission on the project implementation.

The MPs, led by the committee chairperson Senator Eddy Okech of Migori, were caught in disbelief and shock after establishing that only a cement plaque bearing the date of the groundbreaking stood upright between growing vegetation, a clear indication of an abandoned project.

"We want to know the fate of the residents who were evicted. Has their interest been factored? That’s our biggest interest. Is there dignity in their lives?" said Okech, who was flanked by other senators of the committee.

Expressing their dissatisfaction, the legislators vowed to summon the Housing Principal Secretary, Mombasa governor Abdulswamad Nassir, the contractors, and the affected residents to shed more light on the matter.

"We are not happy because if you look at this Mzizima project, there is no progress. We must question the responsible people about what the problem really is. We must establish what’s going on and the fate of those who were evicted," said Okech.

The Likoni Estate and Buxton II are still under construction. The committee now wants to know whether the people who were affected got their right to own a house.

The committee also wants to establish whether the owners of the Buxton housing project are the real tenants who were evicted.

Before the groundbreaking, the project was nestled on LR. No. Mombasa Block X/312 plot previously had house structures that hosted employees of the county government, whose houses were demolished to pave the way for the new project.

"We have summoned Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir to shed more light on why the project stalled. We are also seeking ways to invite the PS for Housing to appear before us. This is a serious matter because people were evicted to pave way for this project," said Wambua.

When he launched the project, Ruto highlighted the significant impact the project would have on low-income earners.

Since 2016, authorities in Mombasa have been in a race to roll out the ambitious urban renewal and redevelopment of old estates in a programme aimed at establishing at least 30,000 housing units.

The investment, through private investors and estimated at Sh200 billion, has since put government employees, who mostly resided in the old estates, in a panic mode following a series of evictions and demolitions of homes in prime locations.

Old houses at the Buxton II, Mzizima, Changamwe, and Likoni estates have been pulled down to pave the way for affordable housing projects amid protests by hundreds of tenants.

Source: TUKO.co.ke