Finally Homa Bay County Governor cleared over audit report.

Homa Bay Governor Cyprian Awiti has been cleared of nearly all the audit queries raised by the Controller and Auditor General last year regarding the financial misappropriations.

Awiti, who is the first governor to have appeared before the Senate Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said he was encouraged by the level of professionalism during the grilling process.

The governor, who appeared with his top county officials before the committee explained that most of the issues raised regarding the financial operations of the county.

PAC chairman, Boni Khalwale urged other governors not to fear meeting the Senate over the same. He had been accused by the auditor general of procuring receipt books from Africa Herald Publishing House at Sh1.2 million among other things without following the procurement procedures through tender as per requirements of section 54 of the Public Procurement Act 2005.

However in response, Awiti said by the time his team assumed office in 2013, the former county council had signed a deal with the publishing house to supply it with receipts.

On the personnel and payroll audit, Awiti said when they assumed office they inherited about 593 employees in August 2013 but the number increased to 2,044 after the National government forced them to absorb the employees. Dr Khalwale told the governor to ensure that he automates the revenue collection.

He said Awiti needs to hasten the appointment of the chairman and secretary of the Public Service Commission (PSC) who have died. He also told the auditor general to ensure that the national audit office publishes each county’s financial report to avoid waiting until they are through with all the 47 counties.

Kenyan's tax payers will continue suffering

About a quarter of Kenya's Sh2.2 trillion budget
cannot be adequately accounted for, the auditor
general has said.
Commentators said the report by Auditor General
Edward Ouko's office exposed the scale of official
corruption in Kenya, east Africa's biggest economy,
which investors often cite as a hurdle to doing
business there.
In the report released late on Tuesday, the auditor
general said 2014/15 spending worth Sh450 billion
was not properly accounted for, demonstrating
"persistent and disturbing problems in collection
and accounting for revenue".
"Corruption thrives in a big way in government
offices, yet little is being done to arrest the
situation," he said.
"We must end the culture of misuse of state
resources. Those implicated must be seized and
punished."
Spending cited in the auditor's report included
Sh113 billion in "unconfirmed subscriptions" to
international bodies, and an unexplained over-
payment of Sh38 billion by the Transport Ministry.
The figure did not include an audit of county
spending, which was done separately.
"As reported under the respective revenue
statements, the discrepancies are mainly due to
unexplained and unreconciled differences between
revenue statement balances and the exchequer
records maintained by the National Treasury," the
report said.
The report was released shortly after Obama called
on Kenyans at the weekend to do more to end graft
to help the economy grow faster.
"Here in Kenya, it's time to change habits, and
decisively break that cycle, because corruption holds
back every aspect of economic and civil life," said
Obama, whose father was Kenyan.
Obama said the government had to show it was
tackling corruption with prominent prosecutions,
adding that it was an issue that also needed to be
addressed elsewhere in Africa.
President Uhuru Kenyatta said the fight against graft
was a priority when he took office in 2013, but
critics complain that too little has been done.
Uhuru promised in March to take personal charge
of the battle against corruption and said that any
official being investigated for graft must step aside.
Transport CS Michael Kamau has been charged over
abuse of office, while Lands CS Charity Ngilu has
been charged with obstructing an investigation.
A spokesman for Uhuru and the Transport ministry
did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Past Kenyan governments have made similar
commitments to fight corruption, only to have the
campaigns fizzle away.

HOMA BAY COUNTY GOVERNOR APPEARED BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND INVESTMENTS

Today the Governor for Homa Bay H.E. Cyprian Otieno Awiti appeared before the Senate Committee on County Public Accounts and Investments on the financial operations of Homa Bay County in the 2013/2014 financial years.
This is a routine appearance to respond to queries raised by the Auditor General. Most the governors have  developed resistance to do what H.E. Awiti did today and this clearly shows that the homa bay county governor is a brave leader sure of himself. He attended the questions that were presented to him and made the unclear issues clear.  senators praised him for appearing before them at a time many governors were avoiding appearing before them to shed light on their expenditures

LUO NYANZA LEADERS HAVE DECIDED NOT TO BE FOOLED AGAIN ABOUT TYRANY OF NUMBERS

Couples in Migori county have been asked to deny partners without IDs and voters cards sex and marriage benefits, this is done as a way to motivate the partners without IDs to seek for the IDs  to ensure Cord leader Raila Odinga becomes the next president in 2017.
During a tour of five constituencies last Friday, ODM leaders asked opposition supporters to ensure either the man or woman, or both, acquire the documents.
“Any adult who has reached sexual maturity in Migori should never be offered any comfort of sex unless he has the two vital documents,” said Ruaraka MP Tom Kajwang’.
He went ahead  and urged girls not to date or marry men without the documents saying they can neither open bank accounts nor use mobile money transfer services therefore they will continue being bankrupt and will never provide for their families .
“Some jealous men have refused to allow their wives to get the vital documents as they are afraid they may acquire an M-Pesa account and get money from their side lovers,” he said.
Women should sleep "while facing the wall", while men should send wives without IDs and voters cards back home, said Homa Bay women's representative Gladys Wanga.
“We will also instruct elders never to allow any woman to be married in their homesteads without an ID,” she said. The leaders said said they will create small
groups in villages whose members will ensure locals acquire the documents.

DP RUTO ASKED TO RETURN WESTON HOTEL TO KENYANS

RUTO MUST RETURN WESTON HOTEL TO KENYANS!

The response by the Deputy President regarding the illegal allocation of the parcel of land on which the Weston Hotel stands does nothing to assist his defence if he has any.

The Deputy President has responded by stating that he built the Weston Hotel when Hon. Raila Odinga was Prime Minister of Kenya.

He has also said that the land on which the hotel sits was not a subject of the Ndungu report on illegally acquired titles of public land.

On the first issue, we wish to state that the office of the Prime Minister was not involved in the approval of applications for change of user or building plans nor the supervision of construction sites. So the fact that Hon. Raila Odinga was Prime minister at the time when these approvals were given and construction undertaken is irrelevant.

Instead, we all know these matters surrounding construction were the mandate of the defunct City Council of Nairobi and judging from the number of buildings that continue to collapse in the city killing innocent Kenyans, many of these approvals were not obtained ethically and above board.

Regarding the fact that this property was not listed in the Ndungu report, we wish to reproduce some excerpts from the Ndungu report regarding how comprehensive their report was and why many titles were not exposed as grabbed.

“High profile cases of land grabbing could not be verified easily because relevant files had gone missing. In the view of the Commission, this was no accident and no reflection on the general competence and accuracy of the Records Department. It seemed to be deliberate”
Page 38, Ndungu Report

“Some ministries, State Corporation and local authorities did not send in the required information at all either out of negligence or intentionally.”

“The Commission was unable to get the necessary cooperation from the Nairobi City Council and other local authorities despite intervention by the Permanent Secretary for Local Government. The Commission was therefore unable to establish the full extent of land grabbing in areas administered by local authorities”.
Page 39, Ndungu Report

“While the Commission did not succeed in preparing a list of every conceivable illegal or irregular allocation of public land in the country, it managed to identify many such allocations…………”
Page 41, Ndungu Report

The title to Weston Hotel is just one of the many titles that were deliberately withheld from the Commission of Inquiry into illegal/ irregular allocation of Public Land, which the Commission observed in its report was done at a large scale.

In any event, the Commission was established on 30th June 2003 and published its report in June 2004. This is the period when the Weston Hotel title was being “grabbed” as is clear from the letters from the government annexed to this statement.

We therefore reiterate the demand made by Hon. Raila Odinga that the title to the Weston Hotel , must be revoked by the President if he is serious and honest about fighting corruption in Kenya.


We further demand that the government implements the recommendations of the Commission which are found at page 191 of the report. It says;

RESTITUTION

“The government should embark upon the legal recovery of all monies that were justly gotten through illegal allocation and sale of Public Land. The recovery should be extended to original allottees, professionals, brokers etc.”

PROSECUTION

 “All public officials, private individuals, companies and professionals who participated in the legal allocation of public land in ways that disclose the commission of crimes should be investigated, prosecuted and/or retired from public service in the public interest”
Page 191, Ndungu Report


We can think of no better conclusion than that of the Commission itself . The Commission said:
“...illegal allocation of public land is one of the most pronounced manifestations of corruption and moral decadence in our society. It has also demonstrated the loss of public responsibility for present and future generations by those entrusted with power. The memoranda received from the people by this Commission leave no doubt that they expect nothing short of restoration of their land: Political statements made against this Commission during the inquiry on the other hand demonstrate the lack of shame on the part of those who may have benefited from the plunder of public resources. Such people would go to any lengths to protect their ill gotten property. At the end of the day, the challenge lies with the government to summons all its political will and might so as to implement the recommendations made in this report. Only that way, will impunity be stamped out of our society”.
Page 192, Ndungu Report

Hon. Opiyo Wandayi
Secretary, Political Affairs,
ODM.

THE YOUTH POSITION ON THE TWO THIRDS GENDER RULE AND REPRESENTATION OF OTHER SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

PRESS STATEMENT
ATTENTION HEAD OF NEWS/EDITOR
THE YOUTH POSITION ON THE TWO THIRDS GENDER RULE AND REPRESENTATION OF
OTHER SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS
The youth of Kenya led by the National Youth Council (NYC) and representatives of Youth Serving Organizations (YSOs) signed herein are concerned with the continued disregard of the youth in the process of implementing articles 27 and 100 of the constitution by NGEC, CiC, AG, Ministry of Devolution & Planning and Parliament. Whereas we support the two-thirds-gender principle, we will not support any Bill that leaves out the youth and other groups. The Constitution drafters ignored youth proposals for a quota while they granted other interest groups. The National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) that chairs the Technical Working Committee on this issue as directed by the Supreme Court in 2013 has continuously side stepped the issue of youth representation in the whole process. It is so sad that NGEC, a body established to take care of all special interest groups has turned itself into some form of gender directorate and forgotten all other functions assigned to it.
All proposals so far in the three bills proposed by various players namely; “The Chepkonga Bill”, “The Mbarire Bill” and “The Neto bill” are all silent on youth representation even though Article 100 which all the three bills heavily rely on states that Parliament shall enact a law to ensure that Women, Youth, Persons with Disabilities, Minorities and the Marginalized are adequately represented at all levels of government. It must be emphasized that you cannot implement article 27 of the Constitution in isolation from Article 100. In fact the Supreme Court’s ruling and the deadline was informed by article 100’s timelines in schedule 5 of the constitution.
All the actors in this process should be warned that the youths of Kenya consider it disrespect of the highest order on their continued disregard of the youth in their proposed bills and that we will use all means possible to stop the process until the youth quota is realized.
The youth of Kenya constitute 67% of the adult population and is constitutionally entitled to fair representation. It is a hypocritical to only value youths as voting machines and overlook them in every other process. We are not going to accept being relegated to the back waters every time we get to the table of sharing the national cake, resources and opportunities.
The youth of Kenya demand not less than 15% of total membership in the county assemblies, National Assembly and the Senate and that no house will be properly constituted without meeting this quota. The current set up where we only have 2 representatives in the senate, national assembly and the county assemblies highly disenfranchises the youth especially in trying to push the youth agenda on the floors of these respective houses. As a result, youth issues have taken a beating as it is literally impossible to get them through. As we speak, Kenya’s youth agenda equation is seriously inverted and in doldrums partly because of lack of sufficient youth representation in county assemblies and parliament.
The ministry of Devolution and Planning, the Attorney General (AG), NGEC and Parliament must integrate our demand of 15% youth representation in the formula they are coming up with or we shall be forced to stall the entire process till our pleas are heard and acted upon. We are being magnanimous by asking for 15% looking at the demographics and those concerned should consider that as a sign of goodwill and understanding. We have even provided to the concerned authorities a clear formula on how to achieve the 15% but they stubbornly are ignoring us and telling us to wait. We have heard this waiting story for far too long and we shall wait no more. Give us what you call tomorrow today! Tomorrow is today and NOW.
We have proposed that in achieving the not less than 15% youth representation, a three pronged formula be applied and this is simply by a) Increasing seats for the youths through the nominations by political parties based on their proportional representation in parliament; b) Affirmative Action within affirmative action in the not more than two thirds gender rule; Specifically we want 40% of all the seats that will be reserved for women be allocated to women who are youths, 10% to women with disabilities and at least 5% to women from minority and marginalized groups; c) political parties should be compelled in law to ensure that at least 30% of all aspirants they nominate for elections are youth. This will definitely boost the number of youth in leadership. The youth of Kenya call upon KEWOPA to be the true mothers and consider the youths even as they push for women. We also want to ask Kenya young parliamentarians association KYPA and specifically the four parliamentarians who sit in the two houses representing the youth rise to the occasion and ensure that youth representation is enhanced. Otherwise what on earth are they doing in parliament?
Finally to all the youth out there, we are at a critical moment in the history of this nation where youth issues are either an afterthought or addressed decoratively and this trend must be stopped right in its tracks. Nothing in the youth sector is working and we shall be giving direction on the way forward. Thank you and God bless Kenya.
Signed:
National Youth Council (NYC), Youth Agenda (YAA), URP-Youth League, ODM-Youth League, ZIYESO, VSL,
AYT, World Youth Parliament, Kenyatta University Student’s Organisation, Youth Initiative Kenya, YFC,
MOPIC, KHRC, KUFSLA, Youth Senate, Inspiration Kenya, Youth Alive Kenya, TMK

GOVERNOR CYPRIAN AWITI'S SAVES KODERA, KARACHUONYO, KASIPUL, AND RANGWE RESIDENTS FROM THE WATER CRISIS.

International Non-Governmental  Organization- World Vision,  has  partnered  with the  County Government of   Homa Bay  to  construct a Sh 200m  water project  expected to benefit  up to 100,000 people.

Governor Cyprian Awiti said on Wednesday 20th/May/2015 that the Kodera-Rachuonyo    Scheme would serve residents of Kasipul , Karachuonyo  and parts  of Rangwe Sub Counties  where residents have been trekking for several kilometers  in search of water.

Governor Awiti spoke at Kodera forest in Kasipul where he, Karachuonyo  MP  Hon. James Rege  and  the World Vision regional Manager, Mr Joseph Tinkoi broke the ground to unveil the project , billed as one of the biggest in the  County.  The intake tanks are expected to be up  in four months.

“We want to sincerely thank the World Vision for this very important project.  It greatly supplements our  plans to supply safe  water to Ninety per  cent of county residents by next year,” said Governor Awiti.

Governor Awiti said his government would pay Sh 30m  in the partnership, adding that  the project would help reduce water related diseases.

Governor Awiti and Hon. Rege cautioned local leaders against politicizing the water project, saying this could scare away investors.

“We want to keep politics out of development projects.  We want to ensure our people get clean water and good roads.   I wish to thank the Governor for contributing Sh 30m for this project,”  Hon. Rege.

Hon. Rege used the opportunity to clarify that he had no political grudge against Governor Awiti.

“The perceived political tension between Governor Awiti and me   are the work of activists who must eat through politics.  The problem is that there are people who must eat, otherwise we are good friends because we both have distinct jobs to do,” said Hon. Rege amid  applause.

He described Governor Awiti as a good hearted leader who had used his position to create development opportunities to the people of Homa Bay County.

He added:  “ I have no grudge against Governor Awiti but some people keep  on rocking us left and right.  I am praying that you finish your term successfully by giving us development projects the way you have started.”

Calling Governor Awiti with his nickname “Jakodondo”  Hon. Rege said leaders should unite to ensure  the County realized  robust development projects.  “We must focus a head and give our people hope,” he added.

Governor Awiti   said his government had sank 40 bore holes and protected water springs across the County. He instructed the contractor to ensure he only used local labour.  Kasipul MP, OyugiMagwanga who arrived after the function  criticized the  County Government  over what he claimed  was poor use of  resources.