Bungoma County Budget: Is it Misappropriation of Priorities?

Whoever overlooked the governors terming them as P.O Box county headquarters should reconsider the thought. This is simply because Kenya governors may be the highest paid politicians in Kenya if the current trend in Bungoma County is anything to go by. Apart from being paid by the state, Governor Kenneth Lusaka will enjoy a total of ksh53Million in the fiscal year 2013/14. Kindly have your calculators out, take 53m divide by 12 months. It’s surprisingly that the office of the governor shall be entertained by kes4.42M.

If you disagreed with the Mpigs then you won’t even argue with this new Excellencies in our counties. They told you and they are now implementing the said talk. I do remember the Naivasha retreat, of course I should remember because it was the last official duty as a reporter for Chimpreports, the governors asked the SRC to review their packs to prevent what came out yesterday.

I would be politically correct to say, “Kusema na Kutenda” is the government we have and so, the new bosses have to also be their own presidents.

Yesterday I watched the live interview on the Citizen TV where even the governor was not aware that he is given a kes4.42M as entertainment per month by the budget committee. The former Livestock permanent secretary could not defend his county for the misappropriation of priorities and it emerged that he actually submitted to their allotments.

I am now getting worried why Senate would fight tirelessly to have counties given Kshs258B only to be misappropriated at the Devolved system level! For the first time I may tend to support the MPs for slashing the kes48B if this is how the county assemblies are acting.

In Bungoma county, Governor Ken Lusaka has been allocated kSh53 million for entertainment, Ksh8M for local travel and another ksh22m for foreign travel this financial year. When I said the Jubilee government was so ambitious some said I was so ‘CORDed’ but this is madness. With the country struggling to maintain the economy after massive withdraw of the traditional budgetary support from the western nations; it’s so sad that the governors do not put priorities first. Why would the office of the governor spend kes6.92M per month on entertainment and traveling both local and foreign? It’s so surprisingly that the brokerage has it, the county speaker getting regalia at the cost of kes1M, is it necessary?

Bungoma has high unemployment rate and the money should be channeled into value addition ideas like grants to youth to expand businesses and to enable the government increase exports. The budget should be slashed to Kes10M and the rest kes73M to be channeled to the youths. Figure this out, if the money is given to the youth lets say kes50,000 per head, then 1,460 youths would benefit and 7,300 people in 5 years who would create employment and make the 1million jobs per county attainable in 5years.

Sometimes am forced to speak like Museveni, why allocate ksh10 million for conflict resolution, what conflicts do we have in Bungoma to solve? Insecurity is not a conflict it’s a role captured in the National budgets so Bungoma needs to wake up.

Frankly speaking is pornography still an issue at this digital age that ksh20 million is set to create awareness? Even if it’s an issue in Bungoma County, was it necessary? CORD minority leader in Senate should tell us clean why Pornography is being a priority in Bungoma.

I pass in Bungoma County in most of my trips to Kampala Uganda and to me electricity and infrastructure is a priority that has been overlooked. Can someone convince me otherwise? Kindly lets share via twitter www.twitter.com/starkolix because someone is not serious here