Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua speaking at Kiomo trading centre in Mwingi West subcounty of Kitui on SaturdayKitui Senator Enoch Wambua has claimed that his life is at risk for speaking out against
illegal sand harvesting.
Wambua alleged he had recently received repeated threats from suspected sand barons, warning him to stop his campaign against unregulated sand harvesting.
He, however, said that he would neither be intimidated nor silenced.
The senator spoke during public rallies in Kiomo and Nguutani towns in Mwingi West subcounty on Saturday. He did not, however, mention registering the threats with the police.
He described the Mwingi region as the epicentre of unregulated sand harvesting, accusing wealthy sand dealers of exploiting local communities while degrading the environment and depleting water sources.
“As I talk today, my life is in danger for opposing illegal sand harvesting. They have already sent out a warning to me and my family, but I am unmoved. I will only die one day. If they want to finish me, let them do so,” Wambua said.
The senator challenged the sand cartels to carry out their threats, saying he was prepared to pay the ultimate price in defence of Kitui residents’ rights and natural resources.
“I urge the people of Kiomo to come out in their numbers to bury me if I am killed for protecting your sand. But even after burying me, you must relentlessly continue the war against illegal sand harvesting because it belongs to you and your children,” he said.
Wambua accused the sand barons of adding insult to injury by threatening him after allegedly ravaging the county’s environment through indiscriminate and illegal sand harvesting.
“As the elected representative of the people of Kitui, I will not allow myself to be cowed or intimidated into silence while their environment is rendered desolate, degraded and overtly ruined by sand cartels,” he said.
Wambua, who is seeking to succeed Governor Julius Malombe in next year’s election, described the continued harvesting and carting of sand out of Kitui as an arbitrary plunder of Kitui’s natural resources.
He promised to ban the commercial sand harvesting in the county if elected governor.
“Those mining sand in Kitui today and selling it in Nairobi are not only robbing the current generation of a key resource but also dispossessing future generations. It should not be allowed to continue,” he said.
The senator questioned why the Kitui County River Basins Sand Utilisation and Conservation Act, passed by the Kitui County Assembly in 2023 and subsequently assented to by Malombe, had remained largely unimplemented.
He called on the Malombe administration to enforce the legislation to curb what he described as disruptive and environmentally destructive sand harvesting by the cartels.
