Ottichilo blames predecessor for county's poor performance

Vihiga Governor Wilber Ottichilo has blamed his predecessor Moses Akaranga for the hardships he has experienced since taking over the office.

Ottichillo said it took him time to realign the county systems and procedures before starting to run the county affairs.

“When I assumed office there was no proper documentation of anything. Most of the work by the previous regime was not documented and those that were documented were not implemented,”  Ottichilo said.

Efforts to reach former Governor Moses Akaranga for comment were fruitless as his phone was switched off.

The Vihiga county boss spoke in Emuhaya subcounty after meeting Corruption Risk Assessment officials from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

CRA director Vincent Okongo said their report had found weakness and loopholes within various departments in the county that opening channels for corruption.

Governance instruments, customer service, and complaints management, revenue collection system, banking of revenue, single business register, rent debtors, pending bills, imprest management were cited. 

Okong'o said the county had failed to provide procedure manuals for guidance in various departments.

“This weakness is an open window for irregularities in the implementation of various activities in the county,” Okong'o said.

The county has not developed proper mechanisms of receiving both internal and external complaints, he said. 

“Using a manual system to collect revenue across the county has fully enabled corruption through non-receipting and non-official revenue receipts within our market,” Okong'o said. 

He said the county is losing about Sh10 million every financial year on rents that are not remitted to the county by those residing within the county houses.

Okong'o said poor procedures to pay pending bills had crippled most of the county projects that are in progress.

“Most of the county staffs do not account on imprest given on time, which has become a major challenge to most of the counties. This has raised so many queries during the auditing period,” he said.

Ottichilo admitted that the imprest issue has been a challenge as staffs do not surrender them on time. 

He advised his officials to be accountable for any monies advanced to them for official government functions. 

The governor said he will not support any conferences and workshops organised by the central government at any cost.

(edited by O. Owino)