By Lorna Abuga
A section of Civil Society Organizations based in Nakuru have vowed to petition Governor Kinuthia Mbugua next week over the alleged misuse of taxpayers funds by county officials.
Mbugua has been on the spot since the release of the report by the Auditor General, Edward Ouko, which revealed massive embezzlement of taxpayer’s funds in the county executives expenditure for the year 2013/2014.
Among the issues that the Auditor General had questioned in the report was the low expenditure on development. He cited that only 10 percent (841 million) of the total revenue was spend on development project compared to 54 percent (4.4 billion) spent on recurrent expenditure. This he said posed a bleak future for the county.
“Failure to allocate adequate funds for development may lead to slow economic growth,” read the report.
It is partly because of this that the CSO’s want to petition Kinuthia who prior to his assumption of office as Nakuru Governor was a Commandant of the Administration Police (AP) in the country.
In meeting convened on Tuesday this week at the ACK Cathedral hall Secretary General of the Urban Local Forum Sangale ole Nasieku said that the organizations were not happy with the activities of county government and that there was need to exert pressure on the executive to respond to the issues cited by the Auditor General in his report.
“Non governmental organizations have decided to take the oversight role since the entrusted watchdogs are sleeping on their roles ,”
he said while hitting at the County Assembly.
He added that if the issues raised were not addressed they could send away investors.
“Which investors can be attracted to a county which does not development priorities. The county assembly has been greatly compromised because it has been dragged into corruption and that is why up to now they have not summoned the county executive over the misuse of public funds.”
He added that failure of the county legislators to hold the executive accountable made them share in the blame.
“The MCA’s have failed to exercise their powers and this is a clear indicator that they lack leadership and integrity,” he said.
Apart from the Auditor General’s report residents have in the resent past been questioning how the county executive appointed some individuals into some positions which were not formally advertised for. Besides, the county government has also been on the spot for hiring 80 ward administrators instead of 55.
“Taxpayers money was used to pay ghost casual workers and yet their job description and whereabouts were not clearly defined,” he lamented.
He added that most public officers had already expressed interest in politics alleging that they had already began campaigning
“We are afraid that these people are using our money to do political campaigns and that is very unethical,” he said.
The Programmes Manager at the Center for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance (CEDGG) Masese Kemunche urged citizens to exercise their constitutional rights in making leaders accountable for the positions they hold.
“The Constitution has given the public the mandate to question all the activities of the county government,” he said.
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