Siaya County offices raided and vital files stolen

Burglars broke into the office of Siaya Governor Cornel Rasanga on Saturday night and stole vital documents.

The thieves also broke into the offices of several top officials and carted away important legal, procurement, administrative, and financial documents.

Mr Rasanga's office was turned upside down, with drawers yanked open and official documents strewn on the floor.

Reinforcement officer

The office of his deputy, Ouma Onyango, was not spared by the raiders, whose mission has not been established.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that a reinforcement officer who was on duty on the fateful night is missing.

The suspects used spare keys to open some offices or broke the padlocks of other rooms in a raid that appeared to have gone on for hours.

Siaya OCPD Ancent Kaloki said the raiders may have been looking for important documents given the magnitude of the search.

Rasanga was not available to comment but the county secretary, Dave Anyona, said the office cleaners informed him about the raid yesterday morning when they found files scattered on the floor.

"I came to the office and was shocked at the sight. Some people were looking for something because they did not take the things we thought they would. Computers were in a good condition, not interfered with," said Mr Anyona.

He added that the office of the governor was ransacked and a TV screen stolen. A second TV set was stolen from an adjacent office.

Said Mr Anyona: "We are shocked. We don't want to speculate and we will wait for the police to complete the investigations."

One of the cleaners who raised the alarm, but requested not to be named, said he had received a call from a county employee to report to work, only to find all the offices open.

"Everything was all over, padlocks broken. I know things were stolen but they are not a big number. Most of the doors were broken and all the files were on the floor. It's like they had master keys for the doors they did not break," he said.

According to inquiries the The Standard made, the county government does not have security officers since a firm it had contracted withdrew its services last month because of a Sh54 million debt.

County headquarters

But Anyona denied the claims, stating that the county headquarters was always under tight security.

He said the guards employed to secure the building were being interrogated by the police.

Alego Usonga deputy county commissioner, Joseph Sawe, told the media investigations were under way.

A source from the county government confirmed that the headquarters has not had security officers for the past one month.