Changamwe National Housing estate residents protest planned eviction

Residents of Changamwe’s National Housing Corporation estate in Mombasa, who have lived with eviction threats for the last two months, on Monday protested against the plans for the second time in 10 days.

The residents, who are more than 3,500, say it is unfair for the government to evict them without a proper relocation plan.

Speaking during the protest inside the estate, the residents, joined by Haki Yetu Organisation officers, said they are tired of waking up to the sight of tens of police officers camping outside their homes, ready for demolition.

The NHC, in a letter dated December 22, sought the services of Quest Civil Engineers Ltd to resume the demolition of the houses.

Some 84 of the 796 units had been earmarked for demolition, and 10 have already been demolished.

The demolition is ostensibly to make way for an Affordable Housing and a Social Housing project.

However, the residents say the new units that are to be put up go for Sh15,000 a month for a two-bedroom unit, where they used to pay between Sh4,000 and Sh7,000 depending on when you got into the house.

Some pilot projects have been done and the residents do not like the new units.

“They are built using some panel materials used to partition commercial offices. Because the materials are flammable and light in nature, you are restricted from using a jiko and you cannot mount the TV screen on the wall,” Dominic Miguna said.

Miguna is the NHC Tenants Welfare Association secretary general.

He said government officers go to developed nations to benchmark and then try to force whatever they see there in Kenya not considering many factors.

“They borrowed that technology from developed countries and brought it to a third world. They don’t know that what they see there is different when it comes to Kenya. Maize, for example, is animal food there, but here it is our staple food."

“They go for benchmarking, they take the bench but don’t do any marking,” Miguna said.

Haki Yetu legal officer Munira Ali said there is a case in court and thus all demolition plans have to be put on hold until the case is heard and determined.

A High Court ruling that gave the green light for the demolition was appealed against on December 13 last year, and the notice served to both the NHC and the National Police Service through the Changamwe police station.

“Accordingly, as far as the tenants are concerned, NHC has absolutely no right to demolish houses without proper relocation plan and meaningful consultation with both the tenants and key stakeholders in matters of affordable housing,” Ali said.

Haki Yetu programmes officer Julius Wanyama said the government ought to have first called the tenants into a meeting and explained the project they intend to undertake before anything else.

“No one opposes development. But any development must follow the law. These residents are being forced into a project which they do not have any idea of,” Wanyama said.

Last Thursday, NHC officials held a closed-door meeting with top security officers at the Coast ahead of a demolition exercise that had been set for Saturday.

Affordable Housing and Marketing Mombasa regional director John Karanja said NHC intends to put up 100,000 units of affordable houses in the Coast region and 50,000 of them will be in Mombasa county, with the other five counties having 10,000 units each.

He said NHC was to replace the dilapidated houses at Changamwe NHC estate in phase one of the project on a five-acre plot, where they intend to put up 100 affordable houses at Sh400 million.

Some of the residents have already vacated their houses.

Wanyama said: “Schools have opened. Form Ones are reporting today. This same government has given some of these people’s children calling letters to join Form One. And the same government comes to demolish their parents’ houses. How is that?”

Miguna said NHC does not want any meaningful dialogue with them because they know tenants will ask hard questions.