Vihiga Governor Wilber Ottichilo has insisted his County administration will not tolerate corruption. The Governor was speaking in Vihiga after being summoned by the assembly to account for use of public funds, with the Kshs 23 million purchase of the Governor’s residential land among the contentious issues.
However, Ottichilo said the land wasn’t purchased in a dubious manner, “We have two pieces of land, and you can’t buy land without having an evaluation from the government. So we brought a chief valuer from Kakamega who did the valuation and came up with the total at Kshs 25.3 million for the two pieces of land including the trees, given that one piece has a forest,” he said.
He added that the owner of the land also brought in his own private valuer, who valued the land at Kshs 23.9 million, “When we sat to discuss, it was agreed we’ll go with the private valuer’s valuation. All the documents are there which can be availed when required.”
Furthermore, the Vihiga Governor insisted that no money was lost, in relation to the alleged illegal transfer of Kshs 18 million, that led to the impeachment of two CECs in the County. “This matter has also been taken up by the EACC, now the matter is also in Court while EACC is investigating,” he said, revealing that they’ve availed all documents required for the investigations. The affected CECs are Finance executive Alfred Indeche and Sports CEC Marita Agufana. He said the CECs have gone to court and one has received an injunction to stay till the matter is heard.
