BY MWINGI TIMES REPORTER
Kitui County residents are an angry lot – and perhaps a hungry populace, as the county government continues to neglect them and ignore their priorities of water, food security, affordable healthcare and roads infrastructure.
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| (Far Right) Kitui governor Charity Kaluki Ngilu |
This came out evidently and clearly last week during a public participation exercise on the 2019/2020 fiscal year budget estimates which was carried out by the County Assembly in five centres across the vast county.
Residents expressed their dissatisfaction with the Governor Charity Ngilu led- executive for “delivering nothing in the just about to end-financial year of 2019/2020. “The government has done absolutely nothing in the last financial year yet we proposed many projects last year, “a Nguni resident charged.
The locals accused the county government of being insensitive to their priorities – by funding non priority projects, giving an example of the illegally established Kitui County Textile Centre (KICOTEC). The much publicized project has been alleged to be the looting conduit for the current regime.
They said Mrs. Ngilu’s administration had lost touch with the people’s needs arguing during her campaigns, the governor promised them heavens that she has proven too hard for her to deliver.
The residents complained that the governor had only concentrated her efforts in developing areas in his Kitui Central Constituency backyard where she served as the MP for twenty years – at the expense of the Ndee nation (areas far from the county headquarters).
At Nguni market in Mwingi Central constituency residents threatened to collect the market charges themselves so as to improve public facilities in the highway town which they noted were in a big mess.
“Everything in this market is in a dreadful condition yet market fee is usually collected every Monday which is our market day. We want to be allowed to collect the fees for ourselves and manage our market for six months, “said Joseph Munyithya, a businessman in the market.
A Spot check by Mwingi Times at the market revealed a deplorable and neglected dirty town – that puts the dwellers and visitors at a risk of contracting diseases. The town has no running water, unattended decomposing garbage litters all over and lack of sewerage system in the rapidly growing urban centre adds an insult to the badly mutilated injury.
The market chairperson Mr Kithome Mwang’ele said since the inception of governor Ngilu’s regime residents have had to brace with hard times – with unavailable government services. “This government has failed us. The waste management in this market is very pathetic while floodlights installed by the last regime have not been operating for months now and this poses a very big security threat to our people,” Mr Mwang’ele lamented.
He called on the already embattled Members of the County Assembly to “come back to your senses” and wrestle the suffering Mwananchi from the claws of seemingly uncaring executive arm of the county government.
In Kitui town, Ikutha, Mutito and Tseikuru the situation was not different with members of the public who turned up for the public participation exercise calling for equitable distribution of county resources.
The wananchi desperate cries came even as the MCAs threatened to rekindle their showdown with “slippery” governor by rejecting the proposed budget estimates. They said the budget failed to factor a Sh 40 million ward fund which the ward reps had agreed with the governor as a way of ensuring equity across the 40 wards.
Kitui people for the past few months been displeased with governor Ngilu’s [miss]management of the county monies by establishing unviable projects like the over Kshs 300 million Ndengu revolution, Kitui County Hospital Insurance Cover (KCHIC) which was launched at a whooping o Kshs 320 million and the haphazardly undertaken Kshs 40 million Artificial Insemination project among others – all of which have so far been described as either failed, unsuccessful or loopholes to defraud the Kitui’s taxpayer.
MWINGI TIMES for timely and authoritative news.
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