Githurai market traders have pushed back against a county government plan to relocate them, saying the new site cannot accommodate everyone who depends on the market for daily income.
In remarks published on 20 November 2018, the traders told Nairobi News they would rather stay where they have been operating for nearly a decade than be moved to an uncertain arrangement in town.
Mary Kimani said the relocation plan was causing anxiety because the destination being offered would not fit all the traders. “We are really disturbed because the place they want to move us to will cannot accommodate all of us,” she said.
Jared Onsase echoed that concern, warning that many traders feared being locked out of business altogether. He said some spaces in the proposed new market had already been taken up without the traders’ approval. “Already people have booked places in the new market without our consent. That is one thing we shall not allow,” he said.
The dispute comes after the Kenya National Highway Authority (KENHA) demolished stalls built on road reserves in Githurai two months earlier, only for traders to return soon after the operation.
The traders say the county has not clearly explained how all of them would be absorbed at the new location, and they insist they should be allowed to remain in their current work stations.
