Bunge la mwananchi

Millions of shillings meant for projects in cash-strapped Wajir County Council have been misappropriated, a team of investigators has said.

The missing money is part of more than Sh40 million from the Local Authority Transfer Fund disbursed to the council in November.

An ongoing internal audit preliminary report indicates that the money was siphoned off through irregular cheques and cash withdrawals, unsupported expenditures and unaccounted for purchases.

The missing millions adversely affected the operations of an already struggling council where hundreds of workers are owed salary arrears of several months.

A team of 10 councillors was contracted by the council to investigate how much is missing so far.

“We are yet to establish the full amount missing so far, but what we have realised is a huge misuse of money,” an investigator who asked not to be named told the Nation. “We hope to hand in a report within the next few days”

But according to the chairman, Mr Abdullahi Ali, the council investigations are to establish the exact amount missing, and that a big portion of the Local Authority Transfer money was used wisely.

“We are investigating allegations of misuse, but we have used a good portion of the money to pay salary arrears for more than 200 workers,” Mr Ali said.

The chairman denied that all the cash from the Local Authority Transfer Fund had been misused, and that the missing amount could add up to several millions.

Ambulance

In Kangundo, the town council became the first local authority in Eastern Province to acquire a fully-equipped ambulance and a fire-fighting Land-Rover.

Nairobi Metropolitan minister Njeru Githae donated the two vehicles to the council during his ministry’s monthly clean-up exercise in Kangundo Constituency over the weekend.

The constituency now has four ambulances, three of which were donated by the area Constituency Development Fund.

Seventy per cent of children in Northern Kenya do not attend school despite the introduction of free primary education.

According to Education permanent secretary Karega Mutahi, the region has a low enrolment rate compared to other parts of the country.

In some regions, Prof Mutahi said, school enrolment had surpassed the 90 per cent mark, but in the arid and semi arid parts of the country, only 30 per cent of the children were  going to school.

He revealed that over 770,000 of children in the country do not attend school out of which 400,000 are from Northern Kenya. The remainder are from slum areas.

As a result of these grim statistics, the ministries of Education and Development of Northern Kenya are preparing a strategy policy framework to revitalise education accessibility in the region.

The PS was speaking in Nakuru on Wednesday when he officially opened a two-day workshop on education among the country’s nomadic communities. Development of Northern Kenya minister Ibrahim Elmi said education was a universal right for every child.

Mr Elmi noted with concern that whereas the region has historically been marginalised in terms of resource allocation “there must be deliberate affirmative action to admit students from this region to training institutions such as teacher training colleges with the intention of alleviating teacher shortages in the area.”

He further called for enhanced investment in conventional schools and training institutions.

Local context

The minister also wants the education curriculum and management systems adapted to the local context in such a way that children from the region are given education that is relevant to their lifestyles. In this way, education will not be seen to alienate children from their culture and livelihoods, he said.

The minister warned that Kenya will not achieve the  millennium development goals unless it makes a serious commitment to address education needs in pastoral areas of the country. The seminar brought together education experts from both the government and the private sector.