#ManderaExposed

                       

Welcome to Mandera County, with a population of 1,025,756 constituting only 2.5% percent of the national population. This gives the residents a guarantee slot to be categorized as a marginalized area in Kenya. The political class in Mandera went ahead and further divided the unity of people through “clanism” and tribal clashes. Article 204 establishes Equalization Fund which is intended to provide basic services including water, roads, health facilities and electricity to marginalized areas to the extent of the extent necessary to the quality of those  services in those areas to the level generally enjoyed by the rest of the nation, so far as possible. Mandera was the third to receive the largest share of the fund from the government. The county stands at a poverty rate of 87.8% (KIHBS) with pastoralism and livestock keeping as the main economic background.

Devolution was a baby that every resident of Mandera was waiting to be born. The last resort to end tribalism, corruption, misuse of public funds and pave way to development, improved standard of living, education, better health care, access to water and a better life for that common citizen who rides his donkey in search of livelihood. To others, our so called “leaders” it was a scapegoat to luxury lifestyle, beach plots, foreign trips, numerous bank accounts and looting of public funds. Allow me to account how the people of Mandera were robbed their money & violated their constitutional rights upon when they entered power until August 2013. Let me call it return on investment after 9 months in power.

The County Government procured ten (10) vehicles at a cost of Kshs.80,098,309 on 22 May 2013 and 20 June 2013. A further amount of Kshs.4,102,920 was paid in diverse dates in June 2013 to a garage for modification of the vehicles. The vehicles are bought cheaply in Dubai after which they are modified hence the public officers pocketed a whopping Ksh 27Million into their accounts. The vehicles were procured through direct method instead of open tendering. A violation of Article 227(1) of the constitution which states that when a State organ or any other public entity contracts for goods or services, it shall do so in accordance with a system that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective. The tender committee did not prepare the required specifications of the motor vehicles prior to the purchase, resulting to immediate modification after the purchase and incurring of avoidable expenditure. Further, The Public Procurement and Oversight Authority (PPOA) was not notified of the direct purchase of the motor vehicles. The county undermined a body that is fully constituted to carry out its mandate by the law through an Act of Parliament.

Goods and services totaling Kshs.49,102,630 were procured during the period through direct method and included five (5) generator sets worth Kshs.7,050,000, computers and other accessories worth Kshs.8,292,000 and installation of telephone system, CCTV and networking of the County Government offices at a total of Kshs.5,500,000. Three months after delivery, all the generators were lying idle in the county offices compound an indication of inefficiency and misuse of public funds.

The Mandera County Government spent Kshs.10,534,000 to pay rent for offices and residential houses occupied by the Governor and his Deputy therefore paying a monthly rent of Ksh. 2,300,000 per month as 90% of the residents live in thorn-hatched hats and pay rent as low as Ksh 2,000 per month. The expenditure was incurred after reallocation of funds from refurbishment of nonresidential buildings to rent without prior authority, contrary to Section 154(2) (B) of the Public Finance Management Act, 2012. The Deputy Governor drew house allowance despite the residential house being rented for him. Also, the County Government rented five (5) rooms at National Drought Management Authority but no lease agreement was signed between the two parties and no valuation was done to establish that the rent paid was commensurate with the rooms occupied. A total of Kshs.584,000 was spent on the rented rooms in May and June, 2013.

Fuel costing Kshs.8,158,772 was procured during the month of June, 2013 but was not taken on charge. Payments of Kshs.2,291,200 and Kshs.1,821,560 were made to the clerk of the County Assembly and the Principal Finance Officer, respectively in May and June 2013, in respect of sitting allowances to the members of the County Assembly. A team from KEMRI requested to sit with the house committee of health to educate them on various health issues and the members demanded a sitting allowance of Ksh. 6,500 for a meeting of 30 minutes only. Mandera being a county with high infant mortality rate and lack of well-equipped hospitals was put at stake by greedy policy makers who are after their stomach and not for better health services. I call it selling the people to the dogs.

The County Government paid a total of Kshs.3,000,000 to two Travel Agencies in respect of hire of chartered flights for a period of only 3 months within 2013. From 2013 to 2014 they spent Ksh 358 Million on domestic & foreign travels. Money enough to build a number of schools and educate our people. Now what doesn’t stop you as a citizen to think that your taxes are used by your leaders to reach into luxurious destinations and honeymoons?

An amount of Kshs.1,839,700 was used to pay security personnel guarding the County Government offices, the Governor and his Deputy’s residences for a period of 3 months. Bank statements showed that Kshs.4,582,338 was withdrawn from the bank accounts on diverse dates in February, March and April 2013. The amounts were used for payment of subsistence allowances to various staff, supply of goods and services and salary arrears to ONE MEMBER of staff.

Bloated bureaucratic policies by the house is a stumbling block against development of our county. Our leaders are ever busy out of the county roaming around Nairobi & Mombasa hotels, renting liaison offices at the expense of taxpayers. They have turned a whole county to be like a “briefcase” where they take the affairs of the county wherever they go instead of creating an open door policy & nearness to the people. Crucial policies have to be approved by incompetent “clan elders” who are the final decision makers instead of engaging professionals from impartial Civil Societies. Public participation programmes are done in a rush without engaging everyone in the community and the MCAs rubber stamps such policies. Most the executives and nominated MCAs are not from Mandera & cannot understand the problems of residents. This creates incompetency & lack of professionalism towards delivery of services to the people.

Lack of priority in development projects is an issue. The county has budgeted over Ksh 1.2 Billion for construction of tarmac roads within the town when people are not yet empowered with few opportunities, lack of education, lack of access water and other basic social rights. How do you tarmac a town with 1.2B to a county that can only raise revenue Ksh. 90Million? That’s not even what Safaricom spends on advertisement monthly. Come on! First raise more revenue from the people through various development projects that will generate income to them.

It’s a wakeup call for residents of Mandera who have never received Billions from the government to understand that they should held their leaders accountable, advocate for development & shun tribalism by protecting corrupt, incompetent & unjust leaders. It’s your constitutional right to ensure you question & participate in policy formulation.