Wajir county denies abusing funds meant for drought

The county government of Wajir has defended itself against accusations that it was misappropriating funds meant to tackle the ongoing drought.

In a series of posts through his social media accounts, Wajir North MP Ibrahim Saney said that the Ahmed Abdullahi-led administration was on a 'looting spree'.

“People even perfected that art of stealing and using proxies to amass ill-gotten wealth. We know them all. I can account for any wealth if I have, it will be painful for some to do the same.”

He went on:  

“Our people are seriously suffering. Animals have all died and people's lives are seriously threatened by this drought. All they want is help, instead of the county focusing all their energies on addressing the ravaging drought they are busy looting,” he said.

However, in a quick rejoinder, the county through its director of communication Garad Saney dismissed the remarks from the MP describing them as reckless and unfounded.

“Our attention has been drawn to some reckless and unfounded allegation made by the MP from Wajir North yesterday. It is paramount to note that the expenditure of the Wajir county government is in the public domain and non of the state-mandated audit agencies such as the auditor general have raised an alarm or queries,” read part of the statement sent to the media.

He went on:

“In addition there is no known official of the Wajir county government who is under investigation for misappropriation of public resources. His excellency governor Ahmed Abdullahi has reiterated and continues to enforce his policies on zero tolerance to corruption as well as all forms of mismanagement of public resources, particularly at this time of extreme drought in the county."

“The Senate and the Auditor general have not cited the county for misappropriation of public resources. We, therefore, call on the legislature to refocus its attention towards its role and join our quest to mitigate the worsening drought situation across the county and desist from making inflammatory statements based on hearsay and emotions.

Garad went ahead to list some of the programmes and drought interventions that are currently running in the MP's backyard which include the allocation of  29.4 million for bursary across all 7 wards in Wajir North where each word received 4.2 million.

Others include ongoing free water tracking and borehole maintenance services since September last year.

Sites include Tula Roba, Hote, Sirey, Lehey North, Jarte West, Basir North among others totaling to 35 centers across Wajir North.

“There is also an ongoing second phase of emergency relief distribution across all the sub counties including Wajir North. This data is easily available at the department of special programmes."

The development comes barely a day after Council of Governors vice chair Ahmed Abdullahi hit out at the Controller of Budget blaming her for being out of touch with reality.

The Wajir governor was responding to COB's remarks on Monday that counties have been wasteful on expenditure in the last six months saying that very little was going to develop.