By PETER AT SIAYA
Vihiga County
Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya has said graft is still rife in the management of Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
He asked beneficiaries to step up their watchdog role to curb misuse of resources.
Mr Oparanya said mismanagement of the funds by leaders had hampered development in some constituencies.
The Butere MP stated that wananchi who are beneficiaries of CDF had a role to play in ensuring accountability in use of the money.
“Corruption is still rife in the management of CDF, but I blame wananchi for remaining silent while leaders misappropriate funds meant to assist them through development programmes,” said Oparanya.
He asked locals to monitor implementation of projects and funds allocated to the same to ensure transparency. “The watchdog role can be done perfectly by wananchi. They should not leave it to Government agencies alone,” he said. Oparanya was speaking in Emuhaya District, Vihiga County when he opened CDF offices yesterday.
Area MP Wilber Ottichilo was present. The minister commended Dr Ottichilo for ensuring accountability in the management of CDF, saying Emuhaya was one of the constituencies that scored highly.
He assured that the Government would not scrap CDF. “CDF would remain intact and would be getting its allocation separately to what would be given to the counties,” he said.
He noted that CDF had changed lives of majority of Kenyans since its inception.
The minister was recently embroiled in a war of words with his Housing counterpart Soita Shitanda over a report that named MPs that squandered CDF funds.
