Kakamega Governor Oparanya Wycliffe has accused MCAs from the county of entrenching graft through fraudulent award of construction tenders and education bursaries.
Speaking in Likuyani sub county during a two day development tour at the area, Oparanya
blamed a section of ward representatives for tainting his administration’s name by their wanton involvement in graft by stealing from the public through awarding of tenders to their companies registered under proxies.
Governor Oparanya regretted that most of the said companies end up doing shoddy jobs despite getting sums of money.
“Most of these loud mouthed MCAs own privately or through proxies construction companies, which they use to corruptly embezzle Ward Development Fund (WDF), usually allocated to each ward every fiscal year,” claimed Oparanya.
Without publicly naming the culprits, the governor, however, hinted that the said companies were among those blacklisted by his government for doing shoddy jobs, adding that most affected were road projects initiated in wards most of which have been left worse than they were.
“Most of them abandoned the sites with work only half done and claim it is the county government to complete,” said the governor.
“Huge sums of money have been spent, yet the roads have badly been done,” stated the visibly irked Oparanya.
Oparanya said locals continue to bear the brunt of the vice perfected by a section of the ward representatives as the later go on lining up their pockets with Ward development funds.
The governor vowed to tame the culprits arguing that he will not just sit and watch public funds go to waste.
“But I want to assure members of public this selfish trend, where elected leaders have perfected the art of embezzling funds meant to initiate key infrastructural projects as well as improving on the existing ones, shall not be tolerated under my leadership,” said the
governor citing Matungu sub county as notorious.
“The people of Kakamega must get value for their money by having all projects done to required standards,” he said
He told the MCAs to utilize the Ksh. 10 million released to wards improving road network in their areas and ensure the works meet recommended standards for the benefit of the locals.
Oparanya took a swipe at the MCAs claiming some of them have been using ward bursary funds to enrich themselves.
“Some wire the money to school accounts but later go there to claim for it at the expense of the needy students,” he said.
Sometimes, the bursary is reduced from Ksh. 7,000 or Ksh. 10, 000 to as little as Ksh. 2, 000 or even less by the MCAs to spare themselves some money.
According to him, the county government has decided to identify and deal with needy cases in all the 60 wards directly without involving the MCAs in order to end corruption.
He said the new arrangement is effective and will not be abandoned despite pressure being piled on him by the MCAs to rescind the decision.
The new approach has seen the least beneficiary get Ksh. 5, 000 according to the governor.
“Our focus is ensuring needy cases are catered for fully.”
