Kenya Insights

Tag: Nyamira county

  • Why The DCI Have Summoned Nyamira County Chiefs To Nairobi

    Why The DCI Have Summoned Nyamira County Chiefs To Nairobi

    Panic and tension has gripped Nyamira county government headquarters after the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters summoned four senior county officers over allegations of abuse of office.

    The four are required to record statements over claims that they have abused their offices contrary to section 101 of the penal code.

    In a letter addressed to the county secretary who is also the head of public service, the DCI wants the four to appear in their offices in Nairobi to assist and facilitate the agency with allegations of abuse of office.

    Those summoned are officers working in department of Finance and Accounting namely, Dominic Barare who is the Chief officer in the department of Finance and Accounting, Purity Nyamboga the Head of county treasury, Geoffrey Kiriago who is the Director Human Resource) and Brian Nyabeo the Acting payroll manager.

    In a letter which was signed by A Shuria of behalf of the Director of Criminal Investigations dated February 5, 2024 it read: “The office of the DCI is investigating an allegation of abuse of office contrary to Section 101 of the penal code. To facilitate our investigations kindly direct the following officers to appear at the DCI headquarters ECCU office first floor Block room 12 and record statements in relation to their said allegation”.

    The officers in questions are supposed to appear before the DCI between February 12 and February15, 2024.

    The officers were summoned two weeks after the county chief of staff Dennis Onsarigo resigned citing high level of corruption in the county government of Nyamira.

    Dennis Onsarigo Resignation

    In his resignation letter, Onsarigo had claimed that the Treasury department was riddled with rampant corruption and he had chosen to resign because he never wanted to be part of government which was embracing and glorifying corruption.

    In his resignation letter dated January 24 2024, a copy of which is in possession, Onsarigo narrates a number challenges he encountered in the course of discharging his duties as chief-of-staff before deciding to call it quits.

    The letter also exposes the rot in the county government of Nyamira which is run singlehandedly by the county boss.

    In the three-page letter addressed to the governor, Onsarigo outlined the social and economic evils which were being committed in the government which he wanted the governor to address but he had failed to heed to his advice.

    He cited the numerous complaints and allegations by parents from the county that whenever their children were seeking jobs in the county government, they had to part with bribes in order for them to secure the jobs, complaints which the governor had given a deaf ear.

    Onsarigo confessed that he had made efforts to meet the governor so that he can brief him about the challenges in his administration but the governor chose to ignore him.

    “As you may be aware, I have made several attempts, more than six times, to seek audience with you to discuss an elaborate plan on how best the office of the chief- of-staff would function in the execution of your manifesto while supporting other departments in a aligning their short and long plans largely drawing their strengths from the mother manifesto, (but) unfortunately, this did not materialise,” read the letter.

    “It’s unfortunate that my office had a chance to put the complete stop, the several instances where your security team including the drivers could go for months without their allowances still do despite the controller of the budget releasing the monies in their names but it ended up not getting paid,” he stated.

    “It was also my desire to continuously and in confidence brief you on the largely held view by the staff in the governor’s office /the county civil service that our office has suffered a deep mistrust, open rebellion and to the larger extent entertained the thought they were being used as a conduit of siphoning public funds. This widely held view that the donor funded projects monies, single sourcing of contracts among other lucrative projects are avenues to divert public funds have been of grave concern to me and a chance to dispel these baseless allegations would have been possible if you had given me the much sought audience for the last one year,” Onsarigo lamented.

    He also accused the governor of frustrating his efforts of improving service delivery and government relations. Onsarigo in his letter lamented that he had proposed the creation of the position of an administrator domiciled at the governor’s office, the position which was to serve the ever-ending concerns of dysfunctional office had greatly impacted on service delivery.

    “The deployment of advisers to respective departments also meant to increase the governor’s presence in the departments and bring to an end the long held view of underutilisation of staff in the governor’s office. Unfortunately, this just remained an idea”.

    The journalist also revealed that he had envisioned an end to the uncomfortable and embarrassing instances where the governor was forced to stop at a petrol station waiting for his official vehicle to be fuelled by an accounting officer who could not be reached on phone despite his ever ending steps of reprimanding of the officer.

    “This stands out as perhaps the most agonising and low moment I experienced as your chief-of-staff,” he told Governor Nyaribo in the letter.

    “It is extremely painful as well that a plan to put measures aimed at making your personal comfort and security my utmost priority came a cropper, plans including and not limited to making available for your use an alternative vehicle, an extra bodyguard because you have only been operating with one for more than five months, fatigue notwithstanding, fuel cards and resources for structured servicing and fuelling failed drastically in what appeared to be internally engineered and okayed strategy where money to be accrued from these services and interventions unfortunately placed your life and comfort at risk. It is regrettable!” he revealed and exposed the weakness of the governor and challenges he was undergoing in his administration.

    Onsarigo further revealed that despite the dedication and hard work from their team, it had become clear that the obstacles they were facing were beyond his immediate control and therefore his continued presence as the chief of staff was regrettably not conducive to the progressive they had desired.

    “I expressed my fears to you not once but severally that it will get into a point where I will be viewed as incompetent not because of incompetence sake but a regime unwilling to accommodate new and bold ideas and one that is captive to a past riddled with self-engineered setbacks”.

    It is now emerging that Onsarigo was imposed by Raila to the county government of Nyamira and that was why the governor had no space for him.
    Sources close to Nyaribo confided to us that the governor viewed Onsarigo as a spy for Raila and that was why he never allowed him to know more about his government.

    Ideally, the chief-of-staff is supposed to be the accounting officer in the governor’s office but the governor ignored Onsarigo and gave the mandate to Mwecha Nyasimi who is also a chief officer in the department of agriculture.

    In his ending remarks he said, “It is my hope that my departure will allow for a fresh perspective and renewed momentum towards achieving the shared goals that have driven us. Nyamira county remains my home and I shall come back in the near future to serve our people in a different capacity and under different circumstances”.

  • Nyamira County again on the spot as payslip of a junior employee paid Sh25million resurfaces.

    Nyamira County again on the spot as payslip of a junior employee paid Sh25million resurfaces.

    NYAMIRA County paid one Mrs. Rose Guto, an employee Kshs25M in Feb 2023.


    The trend is, Officials in the payroll deliberately pay someone salaries in excesses having informed the beneficiary, and in return, use him or her to con the government of the day.

    After paying, they write a letter purporting that the payment was “erroneously” wired then claim to start recovery process. Like in the case of Guto, the man holding an illegal post; Deputy County Secretary and who is also illegally acting as Director HR, one Kiriago, writes this letter purporting to recover the money.

    Ordinarily, this money is supposed to be re-channeled to Revenue Account.From the revenue account, re-budgeting is done. However, in Nyamira county, this money is only returned on paper in collusion with banks and the beneficiary.

    Like in this case, Guto was/is directed to withdraw the maximum amount and handover it to some crooks for “recovery” or the officers talk to the bank after the beneficiary has returned it to the account given, then it is hidden in “suspense” account where it is withdrawn in form of fictitious imprests. Like in that particular month, Kenyans lost Kshs25M in Nyamira in this loot.

    Apparently, Guto’s case is not the first one. In January 2023, two ECDE teachers were paid almost 50-100 times more than their salaries. When we raised this matter, the government under Amos Nyaribo, claimed to have recovered the funds, which was a lie.

    An insider was able to scrutinize Revenue Account and apparently, no recovery was detected. In other words, the excesses in those employees’ salaries went to cartels accounts. Sadly, taxes deducted from the “erroneously” paid money cannot be recovered.

    In 2021, Mr. Nyaribo’s payslip was leaked where he was paid Kshs7M for Sept. Since he was caught unaware, he claimed the money was accumulated over time for the period he became governor, noting that he was receiving salary of a DG, which is also a lie.

    In November 2021, Controversy stalked Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo’s efforts to clean the county payroll after a document alleged to be his payslip was leaked on social media.

    The leaked document showed that Nyaribo received a gross pay of Sh924,000 for September 2021 alongside unspecified arrears of Sh5.6 million. But in a rejoinder, Nyaribo, through his press secretary Julius Nyabicha, said that part of the arrears was money he was never paid for the entire period he served as a deputy governor.

    “The arrears reflected are as a result of adjustments of salaries of deputy governors across the country emanating from Petition Number 9 of 2018 at the High Court in Nairobi between the County Government of Kakamega and the SRC. All counties effected this adjustment except Nyamira for unspecified reasons,” read part of the statement.

    The governor also clarified that since he assumed office in January 2021, he had been earning a salary of a deputy governor, and that part of the now colossal salary was from the accrued differences of his salary over the eight months.

    “We wish to state that this statement is in the spirit of openness, and the county government is working within the strict guidelines of SRC in determining the remuneration of all county staff,” said the spokesperson.

    The revelation came barely a week after the governor, through the Public Service Management department, stopped allowances of more than Sh3 million per month for some senior county staff allegedly receiving irregular remuneration.

    The senior staff were said to had been earning what is specified in the payslips as ‘special house allowances’ like Mrs Rose Guto’s case.

    According to the county executive in charge of the department Thomas Nyariki, the allowances were not consistent with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) guidelines issued in 2015.

    The circular outlined that such officers should be receiving allowances ranging between Sh12,000 and Sh15,000. But the officers, most of whom are in job groups between M and R, had been pocketing up to an excess of Sh60,000.

    The county had lamely  ‘embarked’ on recovering the overpaid allowances.

    These wrangles comes at a time when county suppliers and contractors have not been paid, workers are not paid due to delayed fund disbursement from the National Treasury. Families of the less fortunate are going hungry whilst these tumbocrats are languishing in stolen money living lavish lifestyles.

    The arrest of sitting Governor Nyaribo, Deputy County Secretary who is doubling as HR Director G. Kiriago, Finance CECM Emily Ongaga and CCO one Dominic Barare together with other officials in the ring should be imminent.

     

  • Inside Nyaribo’s mass demotion of county employees

    Inside Nyaribo’s mass demotion of county employees

    Business at the Nyamira County headquarters came to a stand still after Governor Amos Nyaribo released the names of staff members who were promoted through dubious means. The governor who was flanked by members of his kitchen cabinet exposed over 1,000 employees, mostly women, who were promoted after paying bribes or engaging in sexual relationships with top officials who worked with the late governor John Nyangarama.

    Nyaribo demoted all the staffers who benefited from the illegal and irregular promotions as his administration resorts to recovering all the money they earned through the illegal promotions. The recovery is set to start from the August salaries which will affect employees from all the 10 departments in Nyamira County.

    An audit report presented to the CECMs by the governor shows that all the illegal promotions were hurriedly done through computers and that there was no evidence of the relevant departments awarding the job grades to the affected workers.

    The report also revealed that most of the staff members earned higher grades without going through the requisite procedures as stipulated by the Kenya Human Resources Policies and Procedures Manual for the Public Service 2016.

    Nyaribo pointed out a case where nearly 150 employees earned more than two promotions in less than three years including a case where a female officer was promoted every year between 2016 to 2019 from job group K in March 2016 to job group L in 2017, job group N in October 2018 and to job group P in March 2019.

    The report further revealed a case where an officer who was serving in job group K in March 2016 jumped to Group L in October 2017, to Group N in January 2018 and to job group P in November 2018. Another member of staff serving in job group J in 2016 was also illegally promoted to job group L in January 2021 and hurriedly to job group N in February 2021.

    Governor Nyaribo told the  demoted employees to move to court if they were not satisfied with the verdict as he vowed not reverse the decision even if it means being voted out in August 2022 general election.

    Affected employees have, however, dismissed the demotions and plans to recover the money as they vow to challenge the decision by the governor in court after the county public service board also disowned the promotions it effected. Nyaribo was supported by a section of the MCAs led by Bomwagamo MCA Charles Barongo who gave the move a thumps up.

     

     

  • Nyamira MCAs call for probe into collapse of Assembly building

    Nyamira MCAs call for probe into collapse of Assembly building

    The leadership of the Nyamira County Assembly leadership is calling for investigations into the cause of the collapse of a building that is still under construction at the county headquarters.

    The nasty accident saw ten construction workers injured with three other workers who sustained critical injuries being admitted at Nyamira County Referral Hospital for two days.

    Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo visited the scene of crime where he called for calm, while the Assembly speaker Moffat Teya described the incident as an unfortunate occurrence in a County that is still constrained for office space.

    The shoddy project was the proposed County Assembly headquarters which went down after construction had progressed to the fourth floor.

    Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo [P/courtesy]
    Audit General’s Report showed that the Nyamira County assembly had awarded a contract to M/S Jetta Builders Limited to construct a six-floor office block at an inflated sum of Sh367 million.

    The contract which began on June 13, 2018 was expected to end on June 13, 2021, after 156 weeks as agreed on the contract.

    Physical verification on the progress of the project carried out in October 2019 showed that upto Sh44 million had been paid but the project was still far behind the schedule.

    Speaker Teya maintained that the main constructor must be investigated and amicable solution found after millions of taxpayers’ money had gone down the trenches with the collapsed building.

    “We task the Department of Public Works, particularly the project management and the entire team of engineers together with the contractor to expeditiously investigate and give a comprehensive report on this matter,” he said.

    Governor Nyaribo’s tenure at the county helm has been marred with controversies, accidents and waned relationship with the MCAs.

    The collapse of the Assembly offices also come at a time when the High Court has stopped the Nyamira County Assembly from vetting Deputy Governor nominee James Gesami for the post.

    This is the second time that vetting has failed even after Governor Nyaribo mended his bad relationship with the MCAs, majorly from the ODM party.

    Most of the ODM MCAs have been against Gesami’s nomination for the post but Nyaribo made a deal with them to allow him nominate Gesami.

     

     

     

  • Scam: Nyamira County Lost Sh137 Million In Ghost Stadium Project.

    Scam: Nyamira County Lost Sh137 Million In Ghost Stadium Project.

    Five years ago, Nyamira County Government launched a renovation project of the main sports facility, Manga Stadium but the project has remained stagnant since the first time the county did the groundbreaking.

    Image result for manga stadium nyamira

     

    According to financial records in the Nyamira County offices, Sh64 million had been set aside to complete construction work on the facility in the 2014-2015 financial year, but only fencing was done.

    Last year, an official at the county had hinted that construction work would be finalized last July, but even that deadline passed with nothing being done at the stadium.

    “We will channel resources in the sports department towards completion of the stadium. There is no need of having many incomplete projects. Let’s finalize one major project, then deal with the others,” he added. ” Bernard Osumo, the county executive in charge of sports at the time, said.

    In the 2018-2019 financial year, another Sh73 million was allocated to the same project, but on the ground, there is nothing that can support how the money was spent. According to the blueprint of the stadium, once complete, the facility is expected to have a main stand, a VIP area with capacity for 4,000 and two spectator stands, each with a capacity of 1,400 fans.

    Image result for manga stadium nyamira

    The stadium is also expected to have standard changing rooms, security lights, treatment areas for players and an inner perimeter fence. Kenya Insights has tried to get a comment from the county executive in charge of sports, Johnstone Obike turned bootless. Obike declined to comment on the matter.

    “I’m not ready to talk about that issue now. I am attending to other official duties,” Obike told local media on phone.

    Governor John Nyagarama is the one who appointed Obike about four months ago, a move that has since sparked off protests from locals and county officials. The Governor has since requested for financial support from the national government to complete work on the stadium, saying the devolved unit lacked adequate funds.

    “As a county government, we have tried our best but that stadium requires a lot of money to finish, which is beyond our capacity,” Nyagarama told Nation Sport.

    Locals have been on record demanding a sports facility of a similar standard as the Bukhungu Stadium in Kakamega County or the Gusii Stadium in Kisii County. There has been allegations that construction work on the stadium was stopped due to an unfavorable terrain which does not favor construction of the stadium. One wonders, why did they launch a project without a feasibility study?

    According to locals speaking to media, sports officials in the county have not undertaken a major sports project since devolution started in 2013 with some blaming the governor of choosing his cartel cronies that don’t know anything about sports or sporting activities in the county.

    “We have to restore the lost glory as far as sports is concerned in Nyamira County. We have legends in sporting activities who did us proud but we are not nurturing future champions,” Said journalist Angwenyi Gichana. 

    Although no team from the county competes in the national league of any sport locally, Gekomoni Secondary School from Nyamira has won the national secondary schools’ football title twice, pointing at the talent the county hosts.

    Nyamira is also home to globally-acclaimed athletes who have brought Kenya glory internationally, led by Kenya’s pioneer Olympic gold medallist Naftali Temu. Others are Charles Asati and the late Robert Ouko, members of Kenya’s 4×400 metres relay team that won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for the country in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, and sevens rugby star, Dennis Ombachi, and pioneer rugby legend Dan Kimoro.

    Another athletics legend from the region is the late Nyandika Maiyoro, a pioneer Kenyan athlete who caught the attention of the world while competing for Team Kenya during the British colonial rule in 1956 in Melbourne. Among Maiyoro’s key successes in athletics was his victory in 3,000 yards race at the 1953 Indian Ocean Games in Madagascar.

    Why is the County governments participating in killing local talent when they are supposed to be the key pillar in naturing, promoting and facilitating the growth of talent? County government should not be following the footsteps of the national government by appointing folks who are blunk upstairs in matters that affect 70 percent of youths.

  • Nairobi Woman Confesses How She Steals From Her Husband When He Gets Home Late and Drunk

    Nairobi Woman Confesses How She Steals From Her Husband When He Gets Home Late and Drunk

    Friday is a day that many in the current generation have considered an official drinking day and many other weekends “rituals and customs.”

    Couple of relationships have been destroyed by Friday’s drinking spree. The most affected parties in this are men, especially tipplers.

    On a Facebook post, a Nairobi woman confesses how she steals from her husband when he gets home late and stupidly drunk.

    The woman says she has fiscal receipts similar to the ones that her husband often comes with in his pocket.

    She takes all the cash from his pockets when he’s asleep. The lady then adds couple of drinks from the receipt that the husband came with.

    She rewrites everything on her new receipts and returns it in the husbands’ pockets then waits for him to wake up in the morning and start a quarrel.

    Also Read:Lamu Senator Anwar Loitiptip Attacked In Kasarani By Unknown Men While Spending The Night With Sonko’s Daughter

    There have been so many cases of family feuds that have escalated to an extent of one, or both of the partners killing other.

    Last month, the Police in Namanga, Kajiado County arrested a middle-aged drunk  man on suspicion of killing his wife and her suspected lover. The slashed bodies of the  two were found  in the man’s bedroom.

    On a similar case,  earlier this week, Ruiru OCPD James Ngetich  said they have in custody a man who allegedly assaulted his wife to her death after they had a fight about the missing cash from his pocket.

    The OCPD said that the woman’s life could have been saved by neighbours who snubbed her cries and grief pleas. Something that residents of Nairobi county don’t give priority to and most don’t care of whats happening in their neighbors houses.

    This is not the first time this is happening, last month, Nyamira Deputy County Commissioner Michael Lesmam, confirmed that a 38-year-old woman stabbed her husband, 45, to death following a domestic disagreement.
    The two are said to have disagreed after the husband accused the wife of stealing from him when he is sleeping.

    Liquor and drugs have been the cause of many family feuds. Even though we can’t pin everything on drugs, being under influence of them plays a big role in some of this terrible decisions.

    Depression and trust also has its role. The society is filled with depressed generation that are willing to do anything to go through their current situatioships.

    No one has an upper hand in any form of violence. We can’t blame women for stealing from their sloshed husbands, just the same way we can’t blame the husbands from drinking to their slumber.

    Relationships are always the best between two people who understand each other. Stop holding yourselves much to engagements that have no trust, care, or responsibility.

    Here is a confession of how the city woman robs her tippler husband

    conversation courtesy of Facebook