DCP secretary-general and Nyandarua Senator John Methu
By James Kamande
The Democracy for the Citizens Party yesterday condemned the government’s suspension of Tata Chemicals Magadi as a politically motivated assault on Kenyan workers, as the shutdown of Africa’s largest soda ash producer entered its fifth week with no resolution in sight and thousands of livelihoods suspended alongside the idle machinery.
DCP secretary-general and Nyandarua Senator John Methu led the charge, accusing the administration of orchestrating what the party described as state-sponsored economic sabotage dressed up as regulatory enforcement. The real motive, Methu alleged, had nothing to do with compliance and everything to do with control over the vast lithium and oil deposits believed to lie beneath Lake Magadi’s alkaline crust.
“The flimsy excuses given are just a decoy,” Methu said. “The truth of the matter is, there are huge deposits worth trillions of shillings of lithium metals underneath the Magadi area. Further, there are huge oil prospects in the same vicinity within which Tata Chemicals Limited operates.”
The party demanded the immediate and unconditional reversal of the suspension, warning that closing a multi-billion-shilling investment through a ministerial directive — without a court order and without exhausting engagement — sent a chilling message to prospective investors across the continent. Over 500 direct employees have been rendered jobless since the suspension took effect on July 28, with thousands of support workers, contractors, transporters and local suppliers feeling the knock-on effects across an already arid and economically marginal county.
The human cost in Magadi is immediate and visible. The company has long been the town’s economic spine, providing not only employment but water, healthcare and subsidised rail services to surrounding communities. Its absence has left a gap that no government programme has yet moved to fill.
President William Ruto, speaking in Kajiado yesterday, made no concession to those concerns. He defended the shutdown, told the company to leave Kenya and declared that a new investor would be brought in under stricter conditions requiring local manufacturing, job creation and genuine community benefit. “They have been taking our resources to India,” Ruto said. “Let them go.”
The government has not addressed the lithium and oil allegations directly. The case remains active before the High Court, with judgment expected on October 23.
Some of the moments as captured in pictures
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