Flooded roads, lost livelihoods: Barnabas residents cry out for action

The residents of Muguga, Mashini and Barnabas always hope for the best but expect the worst whenever it starts to rain. After a few minutes of rain, all hell breaks loose: roads flood and flash floods make their way into people's businesses. The situation has been this way for quite some time now, and the residents of this area feel helpless, to say the least.

When we visited, we came across two ducks swimming in a puddle on a major road connecting the Muguga and Mashini areas.

We were told that the road is usually impassable and that people sometimes have to use alternative routes. John Mwangi, a boda boda rider in the area, paints a desperate picture.

"I can't count how many times I've had to go to the garage because of engine issues with my motorbike. This alone has cost me between Sh10,000 and Sh15,000. Some of my colleagues have fallen in puddles of water numerous times, sometimes while carrying passengers, which is a safety hazard. Whenever it rains, we sometimes stop ferrying passengers, which really affects our business. This is because it often starts raining during rush hour and we lose many customers,” he says.

We made our way to the Muguga Centre, where we found that the businesspeople shared John's sentiments. Ann points us to a man who has been contracted to fill the potholes with sand to mitigate the running water.

"Whenever it rains, water flows into our premises and property gets destroyed, resulting in huge losses. We came together as businesspeople in this area and hired someone to fill the potholes, but this is only a temporary solution. After a while, the potholes re-emerge and we still have water flowing into our businesses. We need proper drainage and road infrastructure to solve the problem once and for all," she lamented.

We then make our way to the Muguga dispensary, where we find a pool of water right at the entrance.

According to Alex Njeru, the entire road becomes a kind of man-made lake. Most of the homes in the area have proper drainage systems within their compounds, and this water is often channelled outside.

“You can imagine all the homes in this area channelling their water outwards, with no proper drainage, hence the situation we have here. This dispensary is very important in this area, so it is scary when people cannot access critical services because of impassable roads,” he says.

"Mwananchi does not know whether it is a county or national function. All they want are good roads. But now, all roads are under the control of the county government. This comes after a court ruling that gave those directions”, says the area's Member of Parliament, David Gikaria.

"In the 2025/26 financial year, no money has been allocated to the national government for county roads. The money will go directly to the county government so they can build the roads themselves,” he says.

Anthony Kamau, the area Member of the County Assembly (MCA), acknowledges that this problem of bad roads is indeed a major issue not only in his ward, but in the entire county.

"We have money in our current budget to address these problems after the contracts for this year have been awarded," he notes.