The construction and completion of the now stalled Tharaka Nithi County assembly chambers was on Saturday the bone of contention, between the County Executive and the County Assembly during a visit to the county by the Senate Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations.
The Catherine Mumma led committee was on a tour of the county due to concerns that Kathwana was still not operationalized as the county headquarters 10 years after devolution.
In their first sitting of the day, the committee in a session with the County Assembly led by Speaker John Mbabu inquired on the sorry state of the assembly chambers construction that had stalled since 2015 after it was allegedly flagged by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
According to Governor Njuki, EACC probed the construction of the chambers over tendering issues, with details emerging that contractor tasked with the construction of the county executive building that had also stalled was sub-contracted to construct the assembly chambers.
The governor, projecting the assembly infrastructure at KShs 484 million accused the assembly of coming up with an exaggerated structure saying if EACC was to resolve the pending issue, it would be impossible to construct, adding that close to KShs 100 million had already been paid as consultancy fees.
“We cannot go on building a chamber that is bigger than the National Assembly or Senate. We shall re-size the chamber to fit costs we can afford as a county and fit the needs of our people. We need to prioritize projects to fit into our allocation”, he said.
Njuki asked the committee to look into the EACC investigation to allow the completion of the chambers, saying the executive needed greenlight from commission to fund projects.
Speaker John Mbabu, while defending the county assembly noted that there was no pending case between the assembly and EACC on the subject of assembly chambers.
Mbabu accused Governor Njuki of misleading the Senate Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations with fake figures, saying the budget for the construction of the assembly chambers was KShs 360 million and not KShs 484 million as stated by the governor.
“I want to confirm that there is no pending case between us (county assembly) and EACC and that the committee that has visited today has been misadvised. This is a way of the executive not committing to the construction of the assembly chambers”, he said.
The Speaker accused the county executive of allocating money for the assembly structure and re-allocating it under supplementary budgets to other projects on grounds that there was a pending EACC case.
According to him, the assembly had already re-sized the infrastructure project and drawings had already been delivered by the architect.
Igambang’ombe MCA Joseph Njeru while denying existence of a case barring construction of the assembly chambers noted that all MCAs had agreed not to vacate the makeshift mabati assembly structures until the new chamber was complete, after it emerged that the executive through Governor Njuki had advised them to re-locate their operations to the County Social Hall.
While responding to queries over the completion of the county executive offices, Governor Njuki stated that the project had stagnated due to the grant offered by the national government to 5 counties for county headquarters infrastructure.
According to Njuki, the funds were channeled through Public Works ministry, with bureaucracies hindering quick realization of the KShs 366 million which is 60% complete.
COVER PHOTO/Courtesy
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