Residents of Usire sub location west Sakwa ward in Bondo Sub County are seeking rehabilitation of the Maranda-Oseno-River Yala road whose poor state has made their mobility in and out of the sub location difficult.
According to the residents led by Martha Ochieng, in the financial year 2018/19 during a public participation, they prioritized the grading of Maranda-Oseno road which included construction of three culverts.
However, the residents say the road has never been graded and refurbished despite having prioritized it the last two consecutive financial years. It was only graded but no culverts were constructed leading to damaging of the road during rainy season.
Impassable road
The following financial year 2019/20 the same road was prioritized with additional culverts but nothing was done making the road totally impassable during rains. The residents therefore resorted to repairing the impassable roads by themselves because their cries to their elected leaders have fallen on deaf ears. Martha observed that the poor state of the road has not only increased rate of accidents but has also interfered with their daily lives because of the impassible road.
โOur children can no longer access Oseno secondary school and both men and women have been injured on motorbike using this road. Recently a church service was called off after a senior pastor fell and dislocated his leg on a Sunday morning while walking to church through the same road,โ said Ochieng.
MCA Aringo stated that he was aware that the road is in a bad state especially with the ongoing heavy rains. He pointed out that the road was last graded in 2018 and explained that the sub location instead prioritized Oseno water project where the entire Sh. 3 million sub location development budget was allocated in the 2019/20 financial year. He also affirmed that he will push for it to be prioritized during the next budgeting cycle.
