Residents accuse Siaya MCAs of hiring girlfriends as interns

Siaya Assembly Speaker George Okode with an MCA during a past session. He declined to comment on the petition saying the matter is with EACC. (Standard)

Three residents have petitioned the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate nepotism and corruption allegations in the Assembly.

In a letter sent to the EACC and seen by The Standard, the petitioners have requested the commission to speedily investigate suspicious activities within the assembly.

John Ouma, James Wanga and Irene Atieno under an umbrella body Siaya County Accountability Network (SCAN, highlighted eight matters that they want probed top among them an internship programme in which relatives and girlfriends reportedly benefited.

The petitioners have accused the Assembly of recruiting over 50 relatives and girlfriends of MCAs as interns and putting them on salary without any role.

Some of the ‘’interns’’ are alleged to be training in fields that have nothing to do with the administrative and legislative roles of the Assembly while others only make technical appearance in the Assembly.

“These interns are related to certain MCAs others are girlfriends. We therefore want to know the budget for this internship programme, the policy guiding the internship programme in the Assembly and the level of proof of the trainings that the alleged interns are undergoing,” noted the petitioners in their letter.

The petitioners have also questioned the construction of the County Assembly complex and the amount paid so far claiming that the contractor has received Sh20 million payments despite works not going on.

They further claimed that the Assembly had insisted on allocating funds for the project despite a court injunction stopping the construction. The assembly in the financial year 2017/18 and 2018/19 allocated over Sh200 million for the project.

The Assembly is also on the spot for having ghost workers drawing salaries without doing any work and for sponsoring a non-existent trip to Uganda where it is alleged that each MCA received Sh200,000.

According to the petitioners none of the MCAs was in Uganda for the trip and the alleged dates for their training.

 The MCAs reportedly went Kenya-Uganda boarder to have their passports stamped to justify a trip that never was.

“We demand to know the venue of the training, what the training was about, what informed it, who were the facilitators and further the number of MCAs and staff who had attended it. We also need clarifications on the duration of trainings,” noted the Petitioners.

The petitioners also want the Assembly to be investigated over compensation for the public land where it is alleged that they are in the process of compensating some individuals Sh30 million for the construction of the Assembly Annex yet work is already ongoing and also for the purchase of land for the Speaker’s residence yet there is already public land earmarked for the same project in Ulafu, Alego Usonga sub-county.

But when contacted, Assembly Speaker George Okode said he will not respond to the allegations because the matter is with EACC.

Okode warned those publishing the petition that they will sue for libel and defamation.

He said the petition was a diversionary tactic to blackmail the Assembly from its oversight roles.