The county assembly of Kakamega on Monday grilled three executives over the sorry state of the health sector in the region.
The grilling, which centred on the dire state of the Mumias Level 4 and Shamakhubu hospitals, was conducted by the committee on Implementation and Monitoring, led by the chairperson Absalom Andati.
Those grilled were executives of Health Services, Roads, Public Works and Energy, as well as Finance and Economic Planning.
The executives were put to task in what appears to be a wakeup call to the new county administration.
It is also viewed as a move to ensure that major projects initiated by the previous regime are fully implemented before new ones are launched.
This comes just two weeks after the committee made site visits to the two hospital projects.
The seven-hour long grilling saw the officers interrogated the status of the site works and payments to equipping of the two facilities.
In an earlier report to the committee,the project engineer in charge of the Mumias Level 4 Hospital Antony Ekajul said that the project had long been completed and was operational since June 2020.
The report has since been harshly countered by the committee following their site visit report, which details a reverse of reality on the state of the project and which the committee has since branded as lies.
“The situation at the hospital was worrying and in a dilapidated state with no proper parameter fence, poor drainage with poor electricity connections," Andati said.
In his defence,the chief officer in charge of Technical Services Unit Joseck Maloba told the committee that budget constraints caused the scaling down of the initial budget of the project from Sh600 million to Sh.191 million to enable for accommodation of other departments in the funds.
He said that the initial plan was for the project to be completed in two years but had to be delayed following some implementation challenges, including changes in the scope.
“But the works are 100 per cent complete and what is on the site today is a mirror of what had been planned for in the tendering process. The contractor’s scope ended at Sh.191 million," Maloba said.
The committee chairperson questioned how the facility was operational yet it had not been handed over to the county government by the contractor.
Shamakhubu hospital was said to be long overdue, with its budget recurring in several budgets without completion.
The committee called for a quantity survey to be done before any further payments are done towards the projects.
Roads and Public Works executive Patrick Wesonga Kundu called for a joint team from the two departments to carry out an assessment in order to have a comprehensive report on issues affecting the two facilities to find lasting solutions.
His sentiments were echoed by his counterpart from the Department of Health Services Benard Wesonga who admitted that being new in the docket, the grilling had helped him learn a lot pertaining to execution of his mandate.
The committee asked the two executives to move with speed and ensure the projects are delivered as soon as possible.
