Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi Converts Hotel to County Offices

Meru County Governor Kiraitu Murungi has announced that he will convert a hotel in his county to staff offices.

A Sh184 Million hotel was still under construction and the contractors had made significant progress but Murungi stated that he saw it wise to change it to staff offices because there was no need for the public sector to compete with the private sector.

"After consultation with the Investment and Environment Corporation of Meru County, we thought it was a better idea to convert this into offices for Meru County instead of running a hotel.

"Government should not compete with private sectors because Meru already has good offices," stated Murungi.

He also expressed displeasure at how top officers in his county were being accommodated, saying they deserved better.

"Our officers in the county government are not properly accommodated, so we had a discussion with owners of this premises and contractors to convert this to an office block."

The Governor added that there were several hotels in Meru that had been constructed by the National government and were not making money.

"...they all collapsed. None of them made money. It is better business to operate as an office block and pay rent," he remarked as he inspected the construction site.

Murungi's victory in the election is still being disputed after former Meru Governor Peter Munya insisted he will not withdraw a petition challenging the incumbent's win in the August 8 polls.

Munya said although he supports President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election, he will proceed with the petition.

He noted the elections were flawed and reiterated he has evidence the former Senator did not defeat him.

"A petition is already in court and I am not going to withdraw it," he said on Tuesday night during an interview on Meru FM.

Munya said he will not join Kiraitu in Jubilee's campaigns and that he will carry out his own.

"We will form a brigade different from the (Jubilee group led by Kiraitu). I have my own party - PNU. We will have two different groups but our agenda is one - to campaign for Uhuru," he remarked.