Story By Dickens Wasonga In Kisumu Kenya.

Members of a clan on whose land the Ksh. 3b Kisumu Airport expansion project is underway now wants the management of Kenya Airports Authority to fully compensate all who owned land there or forget smooth completion of the noble project.

Led by Cllr. George Weda who is also a member of the Kogony clan, the group vowed to frustrate the completion of the project due to what they described as mischief and shifting of goal posts by some top KAA managers .

The team who addressed the press in Kisumu last week after a meeting with the new KAA boss Mr.Stephen Gichuki and the area PC Mr. Francis Mutie also talked of a scheme by a section of the managers from KAA to use divide and rule tactic to ensure those who are yet to be compensated do not speak with one voice.

They claimed those who were behind the plot were reportedly using money to woe some of the clan elders onto its side.

The meeting which saw the MD fly to Kisumu to help bring peace between the two groups did not achieve its objective forcing those who attended to plan for another one in two weeks time.

Initially the clan had insisted that PSs from both the ministry of Lands and that of the Transport be invited in the next meeting claiming that a facilitation committee chaired by the PC has done very little to help address the issue of compensation in the past and that they no longer have faith on it.

The controversy comes barely a week after another two-week ultimatum was issued by the clan to the management of Kenya Airports Authority to organize for a consultative meeting in order to help solve the impasse involving the compensation of their parcels of land failure to which they would not allow further works at the site.

The same group stormed the construction site about two weeks ago demanding to be compensated dues which they estimated to be 1 billion.

The clan representatives urged the management of KAA to deal with the entire clan and stop using a few individuals who have failed to champion the course of the community for their own selfish interest.

They at the same time hit out at a civic leader from Kisumu Municipal council whom they accused of working closely with the Authority so as to derail the compensation process.

Another thorny issue is a recent ground breaking ceremony by officials form KAA to build Usoma Primary school which was re-located to pave way for the expansion works.

A section of the clan claim the Authority changed the original Bill of Quantity which put the cost of building the school at Ksh. 50m and not 19 m as insisted by the officials from KAA.

They demanded to be told who made the decision to cut down the original cost to 19m .

The Managing Director however said after the meeting that KAA management was very much candid in dealing with everyone as far as the issue of compensation is concerned.

He said full details on the issue of re-locating the school will be given out soon and there will be openness.

The MD promised to hold another meeting with the clan members representatives in two weeks time to help solve the matter.

The project whose completion was to take 22 months has been faced with a lot of controversy since it began and at some point infighting amongst implementing teams saw some engineers who started the project ejected.

When complete the project is targeting to open up the entire East African region and beyond for economic activities that will see so many job opportunities created and several industries established.

ENDS