Governor Barchok grilled over Sh600 million stalled projects

A Senate watchdog committee yesterday put Bomet Governor Hillary Barchok in a spot over stalled projects sinking in excess of Sh600 million.

In the shocking revelations, the Senate’s Public Accounts Committee heard that some projects have been abandoned or stalled for more than 10 years after using millions of shillings.

The projects include ward and subcounty offices, water and agricultural projects meant to boost the lives of the residents.

In some projects, such as boreholes, the county spent millions only for the wells to fail to yield water.

Appearing before the panel, the governor revealed that the county was forced to abandon a water project worth Sh83 million after it failed to produce water.

“These are actually white elephants because we sank in huge amounts of money but nothing came out of it,” Barchok admitted.

In addition, the county has laid pipes for the projects that were meant to supply water to the locals on private land.

There were no agreements between the county and the resident to lay their pipes on their land, thus exposing the county to the risk of legal action.

The panel chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang’ put the governor in a spot to explain the expenditures on the projects that failed to help the residents.

“If you are looking for the definition of white elephant project, then here it is,” Kajwang' said.

Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna asked whether the county government carried out a hydrological survey prior to the commencement of the project.

“It is likely that all boreholes that you drilled failed,” Sifuna said.

The governor admitted that the project was a white elephant and that the residents failed to get the value for money in it.

“Over 95 per cent of the boreholes that we dug were successful and they were done by the same people. So you would trust that they would do the right thing,” the governor said.

The county boss admitted a number of subcounty projects, including ward offices and milk processing plant had stalled, some for 10 years now.

They include subcounty offices in Sotik and Bomet East constituencies.

“What would you tell the people of Bomet that you spent the huge amount of money on projects without returns?” Tharaka Nithi Senator Mwenda Gataya posed.

The committee was also shocked to learn that the county sank in excess of Sh300 million in the construction of Bomet Green stadium.

This after the county adopted what the governor termed as Labour based contact to do the work.

In the contract, non-skilled workers from across the subcounties were given specific sections of the stadium to construct.

They had little or no skills to do the work.

“This is the first time I am hearing this. Is there anything called a labour based contract in law?” posed Kajwang’.

The auditor attached to the committee that the law recognises community-based contracts where the community is engaged in manual work such as bush clearing.

“The concept (labour-based contract) was meant for small, one-time work like maintenance of small road networks. But for a project like construction of a stadium, it’s illegal,” Bomet senator Hillary Sigei said.

According to the auditor’s report, the projects were among the 104 projects worth Sh930.42 million that had either stalled or were incomplete as at June 30, 2010.

“Physical verification of sampled 34 projects contracted at Sh332.58 million, revealed several unsatisfactory issues on their implementation,” the report states.

The issues include irregular procurement of works, low quality and delayed completion of works, unauthorised variations of project scope and material as well as stalling and abandonment of some of the projects.

“As a result of the anomalies, the residents of Bomet may not have received value for money on the projects worth Sh332.58 million,” the report adds.

-Edited by SKanyara