The controversial 158MW geothermal project in Olkaria Naivasha will now commence a year after details emerged over its poor planning.
President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to launch the Ksh 40B project tomorrow bringing to an end wrangles between communities who were divided over the mega project.
The project that is under the Jubilee Manifesto’s plan of 5000MW of clean energy had stalled after various groups including the maasai community protesting that they were not involved.
Two groups of the pastoralist community who are the nuclear beneficiaries had been battling over the control of the multi billion project.
At one point, one of the groups opposed to the project had marched to the offices of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that is funding the project to register their dissatisfaction and even met CORD leader Raila Odinga after missing a date with State House.
The wrangles forced the President to cancel the project’s ground breaking more than five times last year and earlier this year.
According to one of the local leaders Maenga Ole Kisotu, they had decided to support the project for the benefit of Kenyans.
Kisotu said they had been assured that their issues will be addressed and called on those aggrieved to let the project commence, then other issues will be sorted out.
“It is true we had issues including the composition of the stakeholders coordination committee (SCC) but we have now agreed to back the project”.