Nandi hills Mp Kitur leads protests demanding jobs from tea multinationals.

Nandi residents are pushing for multinational Tea companies to scale down mechanization of tea to create jobs.

They raised their concerns over the devastated economy in the area following the introduction of tea-picking machines and recruitment malpractices.

For the past one week, Nandi hills Mp Bernard Kitur led hundreds of youths in peaceful demonstrations to submit their demands for consideration by the respective managements of multinationals owning a lush of tea plantations in Nandi hills, Tinderet, Emgwen and Aldai regions.

Geoffrey Mengich, one of the residents’ representatives said that the massive application of tea machines have rendered hundreds of youths jobless.

“We are not against the mechanization of tea plucking rather than having a framework that would consider economic benefits for the community. What the companies have be rampantly sacking employees and replacing them with tea machines,” he stated.

He noted that the once a vibrant Nandi hills town have been adversely affected by mechanization of tea subsector and want the government to regulate the application of tea machines.

“The urban center is dying slowly and real estate investors and businesses are closing down. We have also witnessed a series of insecurity incidents in the estates, the youths have resorted to theft and criminal activities to earn a livelihood,” said Mr Mengich.

It’s alleged that most of the youths are not eligible to secure employment opportunities in tea estates.

Mp Kitur said that the companies blacklisted the workers involved in petty disciplinary cases and they cannot be employed again any of the estates in the region.

“We have initiated a negotiation with the multinationals and we are looking forward to getting emplyoment of over 5,000 youths. Those who had been banned from the company in flimsy grounds should be cleared and considered for recruitment,” he said.

The women during a public barasa claimed the estates’ senior members of the staff have sexually abusing and molesting them in exchange of emplyoment favours and called for the government intervention.

He said that they are against the multinationals and want to have framework of implementation of community social responsibility initiatives.

“We need to reach a mutual agreements with the multinationals to come up with people’s driven initiative in identification and implimentation of social development. We have poor communication infrustractures and the companies account to the money they claimed to have been all allocating for CSR, ” he stated.