From stalled to incomplete facilities, residents are asking whether taxpayers will ever get value for their money

A Sh 10 million structure built during the president Mwai Kibaki regime under an Economic Stimulus Program at the Kerugoya stadium ,lies idle many years after completion and now being used as shelter by street children . similar one was built at Kimbimbi market and has remained closed since it was competed .PHOTO;Munene Kamau/standard.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayers' funds have been pumped into moribund projects in counties across the Mt Kenya region, which have not been of benefit to tax payers.

In Kirinyaga County, two markets built in 2009 under the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) at a cost of Sh10 million each, have never been used.

One of the projects is Kimbimbi market in Mwea sub-county, which was expected to serve small scale traders.

Former area MP Alfred Nderitu, whose residence is just a stone's throw away from the disused market, said he had expected traders to move in soon after the construction works were completed.

CENTRALLY LOCATED

“It is complete but small-scale traders continue to carry out their businesses in the open, along the Embu–Mwea road," said Mr Nderitu.

Daniel Kimani, a resident, said the market was picked because of its central location.

In Kerugoya town, a facility constructed at the stadium remains unutilised to date despite having cost Sh10 million.

In Nyeri, several multi-million shilling projects initiated by the national Government lie idle years after completion.

The most intriguing case is the Kieni West sub-county headquarters in Kiawara that was constructed in 2009 and has not been occupied.

According to the Presidency Delivery Unit website, the project cost Sh30 million and is only 84 per cent complete.

It has been more than eight years since the offices were constructed with the intention of making Kiawara the Kieni West headquarters.

In 2009, the Constituency Development Fund, under the then MP Nemesyious Warugongo, purchased a four-acre piece of land for the construction of the offices. The project was awarded Sh30 million under the ESP programme.

Along the Kiawara Lamuria road, it is difficult to ignore the large building that now stands abandoned with no signs of life.

With more than 15 rooms that would have housed the various departments, the compound, now overgrown with grass, provides pasture for cows, donkeys and zebras.

In Mathira Constituency, the Karatina market, which also started construction under the ESP in 2010, remains incomplete despite costing Sh470 million so far.

Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua paid several visits to the site last week together with a team of senior officials from the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, and Housing and Urban Development, who gave the contractor up to June 10 to complete the work.

Mr Gachagua warned that failure by the contractor to beat the new deadline would result into the occupation of the facility by the more than 3,000 traders regardless of its status.

Laikipia county headquarters at Rumuruti, whose construction started in 2014 with a Sh56 million initial allocation, has also stalled.

Governor Ndiritu Muriithi said relocation of county headquarters from Nanyuki town was not a priority, and that the project's completion now appears doomed.

Muriithi said the location of county offices could not affect delivery of services, adding that they intended to establish citizen service centres at ward levels.

“What I'm interested is in decentralising services to the citizens and digitise them so that they don’t have to move to Nanyuki or Rumuruti,” he said.

Elsewhere, the completion of the Murang’a County Creameries (MCC) on a former ESP market in Maragua Township has also proved a hard nut to crack.

Millions of shillings have been allocated by the county assembly to fast-track completion of the dairy project, with importation of Sh250 million milk processing equipment from China in April last year.

The county government bought 35 milk coolers which were successfully installed in the milk producing wards in 2015, but it lacks its own processing unit.

Wa Iria has said the factory will be completed this year after technicians fixed the remaining equipment.

"The milk value chain is one of the flagship projects that my administration wants completed to benefit dairy farmers. We have ensured that farmers get Sh35 per litre even as we struggle to have the project completed," said the governor.

The governor blamed the delayed National Treasury disbursements for the delay.

On the right, as you embark on the Subuiga climb after the Meru-Isiolo-Nanyuki junction, stands the green-roofed Subuiga Dispensary, boldly painted in Meru County government colours.

Sitting on two acres of land at the junction market known for horrific road crashes in a notorious highway black spot, the dispensary was initially conceived by the Buuri CDF in the last parliamentary term.

ENTRY LOUNGE

Former area MP Gatobu Kinoti’s CDF pumped in Sh1.8 million to build the four-roomed dispensary with a spacious entry lounge in the 2014/2015 financial year, but it has never been completed.

In 2014, the Kiambu County government announced that it was putting up a modern neurosurgery unit at Kiambu District Hospital.

Former Kiambu Deputy Governor Gerard Githinji quoted Sh50 million as the cost of putting up the unit, but Sh100 million was put in the county supplementary budget.

Later, the then County Executive Member for Health Jonah Mwangi said they spent only Sh6 million on the project that has never treated a single patient.