The ward representatives want City Hall and Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) to establish a designated market for miraa traders similar to those for other farm produce and livestock.
Nominated MCA Doris Kanario expressed concern that the cash crop, unlike other crops and sectors of the economy, has not been allocated markets to enable traders benefit from the crop.
Nairobi MCAs have revived the plan to set up a special market for miraa traders in Nairobi. The MCAs said the crop has grown into a major revenue earner for the country, hence the need for a regulated market.
The ward representatives want City Hall and Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) to establish a designated market for miraa traders similar to those for other farm produce and livestock.
Nominated MCA Doris Kanario expressed concern that the cash crop, unlike other crops and sectors of the economy, has not been allocated markets to enable traders benefit from the crop.
She said since the assembly passed a motion to have an official miraa market set up in the city in 2015, the county executive has failed to act on the same.
Ms Kanario said miraa is no longer a preserve of the Ameru people but has over the years established itself as a key crop in Kenya whose trade cuts across the city and accounts for the employment of thousands of Nairobi residents.
“We want the county government to put up this market so that we can regulate miraa sale and distribution within the county,” said Ms Kanario.
Karen MCA David Mberia, who moved the 2015 motion, said several associations of traders who retail the crop have written letters requesting the county to allocate a market for them but their pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
He said that even though miraa exports rank among the country’s top 10 foreign exchange-earners, with a significant contribution to the country’s GDP, its traders continue to suffer at the hands of county enforcement officials who harass them for selling their wares in undesignated places,” Mberia said.
“The introduction of such a market will make it possible to regulate the trade and consumption of the crop.”
Ms Kanario added that City Hall can even establish temporary markets in the meantime in Eastleigh with the traders continuing to operate on roadsides in the area.
Eastleigh is the main business hub of the stimulant grown mainly in the Nyambene region with most of the miraa chewed in Nairobi being sourced from Eastleigh.
The market covers among other places Mlolongo, Rongai, Machakos, Westlands, Parklands, South B and South C, and Nairobi West.
“The traders usually sell the miraa on roadsides especially in Pumwani in unhygienic conditions which is not good. The county government should therefore set aside an area to act as a market for them,” said Ms Kanario.
The MCAs now want to know the status of the motion on the establishment of a designated market for miraa traders and measures the county executive is taking to ensure that the proposed market is developed in a definite timeline.
