Murang’a Governor Mwangi Wa Iria has rejected a survey that ranked his county as the most corrupt alleging that it was meant to disrupt succession plans in 2022.
The Murang'a county boss alleged the release of the survey by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) was well calculated to taint his county's leadership in the wake of the succession debate.
Wa Iria demanded: “How do you rank the entire county as the most corrupt without indicating where the demands were made and by who? Which department in the county did they rank?”
He added: “They are looking for issues which can paint this county black so that come succession equation Murang’a is exempted from the process. We know that. I am the only governor who was re-elected in this region.”
[caption caption="Murang'a County Governor Mwangi wa Iria"]
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Wa Iria noted that some local leaders were unhappy with his hawking bill, which is now before the Senate for consideration.
The report released by EACC ranked Murang’a County as most corrupt with 90.7 percent followed by Trans Nzoia (84 percent), Mandera (79.4 percent) and Kirinyaga (78.9 percent).
The leadership of Migori county too rejected the ranking terming it as misleading.
Lamu County ranked least corrupt where respondents were reluctant to pay bribes followed by those in TaitaTaveta, Tana River and Kericho.
Respondents in the survey ranked corruption as the third major problem currently facing the country.
[caption caption="Integrity Centre home of EACC"]
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The report also noted the average number of times a bribe demanded nationally increased to 1.66 times from 1.56 in the 2015 Survey though lower than the average of 1.93 in 2012.
