Fire at PM's

A fire scare on Tuesday forced a high level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Raila Odinga to be abandoned and his Treasury Building evacuated.

Mr Odinga and four other Cabinet ministers were meeting members of a taskforce on food when a light bulb in his board room started emitting smoke.

The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Mr Wycliffe Oparanya (Planning and Vision 2030), Dr Naomi Shaban (Special Programmes) and Beth Mugo (Public Health and Sanitation) were evacuated hurriedly followed by other civil servants in the building.

Left venue in panic

The taskforce chaired by Dr Mohammed Isahakia, who is also the PS at the Prime Minister’s office is supposed to recommend methods the government should use to distribute food to people facing hunger.

Members of the taskforce were preparing to hand it over to Mr Odinga when they spotted the smoke. They immediately left the venue in panic.

The frightened ministers and the taskforce members all ran towards the PM’s office, which is next to the boardroom. Mr Odinga had just arrived a few minutes before the fire scare.

There was calm for about 15 minutes when technicians working within the building were called in and dispelled fear saying it was small problem.

However, when engineers from Kenya Power and Lightning Company were contacted, they asked people to leave the building right away.

It is at this time that Mr Odinga and the four ministers were evacuated. They were rushed to the VIP lift accompanied by their security agents and aides.

“No one seems to know where the problem is. And we have been advised to leave,” head of the Prime Minister’s Press service, Dennis Onyango told journalists.

He said members of the taskforce will hand over their report to Mr Odinga today at 9am. There was panic at the entire Treasury building, which also houses the offices of Mr Kenyatta, who is also the Finance minister, and Mr Oparanya.

It was the fourth time this year for a similar incident to occur at the 14-storey Treasury Building.

But in the other three incidents, sparks of fire had been spotted at the transformer, which is located on the ground floor.

In one of the incidents, which occurred early in the year, the transformer blew up, but the building did not catch fire.

People were advised to leave the place. However, neither Mr Odinga nor Mr Kenyatta were in the building at that time.

By the time of going to press engineers from Kenya Power and Lightening Company were still trying to rectify the problem.