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Bomet County Governor Hillary Barchok has told bodaboda merchants in the region to be lenient to their clients who default on payments.

Barchok said the bodaboda dealers should understand that at the moment the country is facing a crisis posed by Coronavirus pandemic and youth of this country are not making any profit.

He noted with concern a tendency by the dealers to forcefully auction property of their clients as a result of late or nonpayment of the amounts due. 

“We all know the situation across the country is real. Businesses in all sectors have gone down and so for some individuals to chase defaulters around is totally insensitive and unacceptable at all,” Barchok said.  

Speaking at Sigor sub county hospital in Chepalungu on Wednesday, the governor told the dealers to give more time to the entrepreneurs the same way banks had extended repayment periods for its customers with credit facilities. 

Warning against harassment of the youth from the county, Barchok said those found should get prepared to similarly have business licenses revoked. 

“If they continue chasing around our youth we shall also chase them out of our county to some other places where there is no Corona,” he remarked.

He, however, stated that this should not be an excuse for the defaulters to avoid repaying the money owed to them saying those with other sources of income should continue surfacing their loans.

The governor’s statement comes in the wake of reports that some dealers from the county had started repossessing the motorbikes from their owners due to nonpayment of loans at the required time.