Makueni residents continue suffering as pipeline officials delay oil spill report

Mzee Ngie Nguku whose family lives barely 100 metres from the point where the oil spill occurred, has endured untold suffering in the last six months. The 95-year-old's entire family has been having lead poisoning complications. PHOTO | PIUS MAUNDU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • At the height of the scare occasioned by the exposure to petroleum products, residents were fearful that they could be exposed to lead poisoning.

  • County public health officials had warned residents against eating fruits and vegetables irrigated using water from the contaminated River Thange.

  • Through their representative Mr John Mukai, the community agreed to have “independent” authorities interrogate the study outcomes before presenting them to the residents.

Makueni residents will have wait to longer to know the impact on their health and land of the Kenya Pipeline Company oil spill in Thange village in Kibwezi East Constituency which happened six months ago.

Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and county government officials are withholding the results on the studies undertaken on the extent and impact of the oil spill saying relevant authorities must first make sense of the findings.

“We have with us the reports on the independent probes that we had commissioned independent firms to undertake but we must hand them over to relevant authorities to make sense of them before we present the findings to you,” said the company’s interim Chief Technical Manager Mr Philip Kimelu on Friday.

At the height of the scare occasioned by the exposure to petroleum products, residents were fearful that they could be exposed to lead poisoning and called for the intervention of the local county health promotion unit, Dr Cyrus Matheka.

County public health officials had warned residents against eating fruits and vegetables irrigated using water from the contaminated River Thange.

Dr Matheka said that he had interrogated the test results and was satisfied that they did not show cause for alarm but advocated for experts to peruse the report again.

Through their representative Mr John Mukai, the community agreed to have “independent” authorities interrogate the study outcomes before presenting them to the residents.

“We do not want to be treated to rumors,” said Mr Mukai amid applause from the audience gathered at the Thange Primary School.

He added: “It makes sense that independent authorities such as the National Environment Management Authority and Water Resources Management Authority should first interpret the reports for us.”

On the sidelines of the rally, Mr Janson Nyantino, the company’s head of corporate communication told Sunday Nation that KPC would also invite SGS, a foreign company that undertook the probe on the environmental impact of the oil spill, to break down the study outcomes to the community.

In addition to commissioning the scientific tests, KPC had been supplying the residents with fresh water.

On Saturday, the company agreed to the residents’ plea for relief food, saying that it would bring them a consignment of relief food before Christmas Day.