The ideas for Nyanza region captured in Deputy President William Ruto's recovery plan are from the economic blueprint for Lake Region Economic Bloc, its CEO has said.
The LREB boss Abala Wanga on Thursday claimed that Ruto point man Eliud Owalo plagiarised their document.
He said Owalo copy-pasted the ideas which he came across when he was hired by the bloc in 2019 as a consultant.
Speaking at his office at Kisumu Town Hall, Abala said he will soon write a letter to ask Owalo to stop using the contents of the plan and parading it in public meetings as his.
"I was stunned to read through what my friend Eliud Owalo put forth as Ruto's economic ideas for Western and Nyanza regions," he said.
Abala said Owalo was contracted by LREB as a consultant to do the strategic plan and was given the organisation's blueprint to generate ideas from.
"We gave him our economic blue print from where he got all the ideas and a lot of information to build the plan," he said.
He claimed that what Owalo was sharing in public forums was obtained from the plan.
"What he is parading now in public spaces, telling all and sundry that are Ruto's ideas for Western and Nyanza, are all cut and pasted from our documents," he said.
"He has just lifted everything from the document and we are going to write a letter to restrain him from using our information. This is plagiarism of the highest order," Wanga said.
But in a rejoinder, Owalo dismissed the claims that he stole information that belonged to LREB.
"That’s nonsense. I was the consultant for the LREB strategic planning process. I’m the one who developed the LREB strategic plan. How can I copy-paste my own ideas?" Owalo said in a text message.
He, however, declined to state how much he received for the consultancy services he rendered and whether he surrendered property rights after the production of the alleged document.
Last Sunday, Ruto met with politicians and professionals from Nyanza in yet another attempt to penetrate ODM leader Raila Odinga’s political turf.
The two-day meeting in Naivasha discussed Ruto’s bottom-up model that he believes will turn around the country’s economy.
Edited by Henry Makori
