Residents in Timau, Meru County, took to the streets on Wednesday, January 15, protesting their exclusion from working in President William Ruto's flagship project, the Affordable Housing Project.
Speaking to the media, the protestors decried the site manager's alleged ethnic bias when hiring, stating that the Meru Community was being discriminated against despite the law stipulating that locals receive the majority of the jobs available in any government project. "You will not find any local resident at that site.
On the days when most of us complain, he sets his people aside and hires some of us to pacify us and convince us there is no discrimination," one of the protestors said of the site manager. "We know the law directs that three-quarters or 70 per cent of the jobs are supposed to be offered to the local residents but if you look keenly, you will realise that not even 10 per cent of that has been met.
The locals, who were previously hired, were all let go leaving only people from Ukambani." A construction site for affordable houses in Mombasa County near the Buxton Point Project.
