MP denies bid to grab centre for disabled

An MP has run into trouble with managers of a workshop for the disabled after they claimed he wants to grab it.

The management of Jacaranda Workshop in Dagoretti North Constituency has accused area MP Simba Arati of plans to kick them out of the 30-year-old yard.

The workshop director Rita Rodgers told the Nation on Monday the legislator plans to have it run under Jacaranda Special School in Kileleshwa, Nairobi.

Mr Arati, however, denied trying to grab the workshop but vowed to use any means to ensure it reverts to the school.

Established structures

“How can I grab a workshop which has been long in existence and which has established structures? All I want is for the workshop to be surrendered to the school, nothing else,” he told the Nation on phone.

Ms Rodgers claimed the MP and the new school board demanded last month that the management vacates the workshop, which is run by the Rotary Club of Nairobi.

“The new board of the school supported by the MP gave us 24 hours to leave. Nobody used the right procedure. They never wrote us a letter,” she said.

The school, which sends its pupils to the workshop upon graduation, is a special centre for children with mental disabilities.

However, the workshop was registered as a limited company two years ago and is now under a different management and mainly funded by the club.