West Pokot governor John Lonyangapuo on Thursday suspended 23 projects to pave way for investigations on alleged corruption.
The governor said millions of shillings was paid to the contractors at a
highly infiltrated cost.
He has written to the anti-graft agency to investigate criminals who connived
to steal public funds.
Addressing the media in Kapenguria, Lonyangapuo
said the projects were started by his predecessor Simon Kachapin.
He said he invited National Construction Authority after resuming office to conduct an audit of the ongoing projects.
“The authority has given us a damning report that showed that the costs of most of the projects were highly infiltrated, work is halfway, the workmanship is poor but total payment had already been done,” he said.
He said some of the contractors disregarded procurement laws, lacked professionalism and were awarded lucrative tenders that they had no capacity to handle.
“Many briefcase contractors emerged and were awarded contracts without qualified experience and valid documents to carry out the work,” he said.
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he governor said that the past government initiated numerous construction projects whose sole purpose was not to improve lives of the people but to enrich some county officials through arbitrary awards of contracts and kickbacks.
“A total of 23 projects have been analyzed and none of them met the required standards of construction,” he said.
Lonyangapuo said that the public did not get value for their money since most of the contractors were not registered by NCA and lacked a valid licence.
He asked the authority to take action against the contractors for not adhering to the law.
“For example, the construction of Early Childhood development multipurpose hall in Kapenguria was initially valued at Sh26 million but the amount was later changed upwards to Sh41 million. The funds have been paid but work is not complete,” he said.
In another case, the governor said the county paid a contractor Sh350 million for construction of a tourist hotel at Kopoch.
He said only less than 15 per cent of the total work has been done.
“We have also a case of ongoing construction of an Agricultural Training college (ATC) a cost of Sh233million. All the money has been paid while substantial work is pending,” he said.
About the renovation of Makutano stadium which began in 2015 and later stalled, the governor said the project was awarded Sh12 million and the contractor has been paid the funds but little work had been done.
“The above cases clearly show that the county staff used to connive with contractors to defraud the public, he said.
Lonyangapuo said most of the projects were not a priority to the residents since the county was termed as a marginalized county and it needed projects that could help uplift living standards of residents.