Former Governor Josphat Nanok, who serves as a State House Aide, on Sunday hit out at Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei for poking holes in his leadership during his tenure in Turkana. Cherargei cited incompetence blaming Turkana’s problems on Nanok’s governance.
In a tweet, Nanok termed the utterances by the senator as ‘falsehoods, a hate and dirty campaign against my person and performance as Governor of Turkana (2013-2022).’
“I dare him to repeat them outside Parliament. By the way, I am not hiding, I commute daily to work from home,” he responded to Cherargei.
In a strongly-worded accusation, Senator Cherargei lashed out at Nanok accusing him of misappropriation of resources leaving the county facing a host of issues like drought, famine and shortage of water.
"Turkana is a hardship area yet Ksh110 billion cannot be accounted for for ten years. There is hunger, there is insufficient water, and irrigation projects have collapsed,” he said during senate proceedings.
“Somebody signed Ksh200 million to build a governor's residence that does not exist. Ksh1.5 billion was built for guest quarters, Ksh82 million was allocated to AC that is not functioning, Ksh6.5 million was made into a generator that does not exist,” he added.
The senator further lamented that despite the senate advocating for more money to be allocated to counties, little value has been realized for Kenyans at the grassroots level. “Just like other senators, we fight here to allocate money to the counties but we don't see value for that money,” he added.
Cherargei expressed concerns that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission had not done anything about the accusations: “The EACC is doing nothing about it, the culprit is working and is in the protected area.”
The fallout came amidst a back-and-fourth debate on whether the fruits of devolution have trickled down to the counties.
Critics, both in government and outside, pointed out that a sizeable chunk of funds allocated to counties ended up in sham projects and corruption.
“We must, as a house, take a position,” Cherargei urged his colleagues
