By FRANCIS ONTOMWA
Call centre smokes out leaders on public funds
When a local secondary school was embroiled in bursary allocation delinquencies in Lugari constituency in 2010, no one had the courage to unmask the syndicate. Parents expressed displeasure albeit silently.
None of them confronted the issue head on for fear of victimisation by school authorities. It is the 61-year Kanuti Mukhaya who defied odds and summed up courage to expose the wrongdoings through the National Taxpayers Association (NTA).
Mzee Mukhaya was introduced to the NTA call centre by a friend and after placing a call to the Association. They followed up the matter assiduously.
The whole exercise was revisited and the over Sh88,000 that nearly went down the drain was saved. Mzee Mukhaya’s experience is just one among the over 8,000 cases of complaints that have been handled by the call centre since 2010 when the concept was incepted in Western Kenya. Each passing day, the numbers soar.
Service delivery
The call centre, a joint venture by NTA and the office of Western Provincial Commissioner was started with a view of improving service delivery and instilling accountability in public service.
Western PC James Ole Serian says they have had an amicable working relationship with NTA and the call centre. This, he adds, has boosted service provision in the region. Ole Serian observes that their close ties have assisted them reach out to the public.
“We have a good rapport with NTA and this particular area of call centre has helped us reach out to people and enabled us to address several issues that may have been difficult to reach us directly,” notes Ole Serian
In the public domain, NTA is not new to Kenyans. It has severally published names of constituencies that have misappropriated or misused the Constituency Development Funds over the years.
It is slowly is finding a new frontier through the call centre. “We realised that a link was missing between the Government and the citizens, there are millions of complaints that Kenyans have but they are either unsure of where to report them or are just afraid, and this is precisely why we decided to come in,” explains Evelyn Khamala, NTA Western region co-ordinator.
“We have circulated our hotlines and short messaging service lines which we use to collect information from the public,” adds Khamala.
Once the Association gathers credible information, they relay the same to concerned authorities confidentially without revealing names of complainants for appropriate actions to be taken. “ The first thing we do when we receive theses calls is to inculcate trust between us and the caller.
We have to assure them that the information they give us will be treated confidentially, we then probe further and involve concerned authorities in seeking solutions,” observes Khamala.
Githinji Gachunga, the district officer of Ileho Division in Shinyalu constituency says public forum commonly known as barazas have been their biggest avenues of sensitising people on the call centre and according to him public service is collective responsibility.
“Through the barazas we disseminate information about this service and we are glad that people are embracing them very well, NTA is doing an impressive job and this must be commended, everyone has a responsibility in public service,” he observes.
Gachunga feels that the association has even a bigger task ahead in the county government system as they will have to act the role of watchdog in the way funds will be used to ensure accountability.
“The county governments are coming in and we hope that the public will be more vigorous to demand accountability and this therefore means that NTA’s work is also cut out,” says Gachunga
The call centres operate from 7 am to 6 pm in the evening on weekdays and 7:00 am to 10:00 am on Saturdays and majorly the association receives complaints touching on bursaries, school levies and land matters.
Sensitive matters
The biggest challenge facing the call centre concept though is the delay by authorities to act fast on sensitive matters. This, according to Khamala serves to water down their credibility in the public eye.
“It is a big letdown when we gather evidence for the government and instead the process takes ages to be resolved, this affects the trust that people have in us,” she says.
Some of the beneficiaries of the call centre that The Standard managed to talk to include Maurice Aseka, 42, of Lugari who reported the misuse of funds in a road construction project in the constituency last year that was later acted upon appropriately.
Others are Joseph Obukanga of Emuhaya constituency who reported on corruption in the allocation of youth funds last year as well and Abraham Ekhuya who brought into spotlight the misuse of Free Primary Education funds in the same constituency.
“We wish NTA well and urge them to cast their nets wider, if not for the call centre many projects in Emuhaya schools would have stalled, we reported and action was taken,” says Ekhuya of the concept.
According to Mr Martin Napisa, the acting NTA national coordinator, the lobby plans to set up several national call centres to benefit all Kenyans.
This is after a very successful call centres in Western and Coast Region. Coast call centre is dedicated to addressing issues in the education sector.
The centre, which was started only one year ago, has followed 63 cases through to completion in the last six month alone.
Napisa called on the incoming governors in western and coast to continue supporting the call centre to effectively serve citizens in the two regions.
