There has been some serious growth in Infrastructure in our main cities in recent years. Construction has taken on another level with apartments, office blocks, hotels, schools, hospitals and other building on demand. When one looks at it like this one would think it’s not a destructive force but trust me as much as we need sand on the other hand it is very destructive. Sand is much needed by Mother Nature as much as we also need it for construction. Sand contains the ability to preserve water and we ask ourselves why Ukambani land is one of the driest parts in Kenya.To my understanding there are some situations where seeing is believing. One has to see the destructive nature of harvesting and how it affects the surrounding nature as well as the residents in the neighborhood.
In the beginning of the year The Machakos Governor Dr. Afred Mutua put levies on Sand harvesting in a way that if one is buying or selling sand, one has to pay a tax of 20 thousand shillings. His counterpart Makueni Govoner Professor Kibutha Kibwana instead took a bold move and totally banned sand harvesting in his county. Dr. Afred Mutua wants to build a new city and this will require a lot of Sand for the Buildings which will be there. Machakos and Makueni Counties has best quality sand in the country and Leaders need to get up and save what we have left. This natural resource we have in plenty, we need to find a way how it can be harvested in a manner where Mother Nature can thrive.
In order to understand the severity of the matter I decided to visit a farm affected by sand harvesting and show how it has proven a losing battle. After surveying this particular farm, we decided with the management to go and consult the Machakos County offices in charge of sand harvesting and it’s licensing. Going to those offices was just a waste of our valuable time, instead of giving us information or helping us we ended up in the NEMA Machakos offices. The Machakos NEMA offices are located 15 minutes’ drive on Kangundo Road, then just next to Mumbuni Boys High School. I must admit NEMA are well organized, we were well received the junior staff and made us fill a form after we had handed in a request letter for ban on Sand harvesting in that particular area. The officers then instructed us to go get an OB number from the Machakos police station so that they can come and asses the area then give us the Ban.
Getting an OB number from the police was not a big issue since that’s what they are used to on a daily basis. We drove back to the NEMA offices knowing that we had already fulfilled the requirements of getting the sand ban. We even went an extra mile and took pictures of the destructive nature of sand harvesting. When we got there, we were well received and after giving the OB number to them, we were ushered in the manager's office. My first observation was that he continued reading a newspaper even as we settled. After we explained our purpose of coming to see him, he is the kind of people I ask why they even bother to wake up and go to the office at all. He just wasn’t interested in our claims even after showing him pictures of how destructive sand harvesting was to the farms around as well as the youth. The youth on the other hand live a destructive life as well because the do the harvesting and the loading which later on the money ends up in the local dens for cheap liquor. When we left those NEMA offices I was deeply worried of our youth and suddenly the people who have been trusted to work for the citizens instead of reading newspapers while having guests in your offices. Where does the government get the individuals? that’s the reason why we should be each other’s watch dog.
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