Senate targets counties with caps on construction costs

Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi's official residence that was reportedly purchased for Sh300 million.[File, Standard]

Senators have defended the move to cap the cost of constructing residences for top county chiefs and offices for other county employees.

The lawmakers said the decision was arrived at after an inquiry revealed that some costs were so inflated that they invited scrutiny to establish whether the deals were fraudulent.

Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula said they found some counties were paying as much as three times for similar projects executed at modest costs by other devolved units.

“We were confronted with a situation where you find one county is building or buying a property and when you go to the next one, the cost is tripled.

“There is the classic case of Kilifi County where a certain mzungu built two identical houses on the same acreage on a creek. He sold one to an individual for Sh45 million and the other to Kilifi county government for Sh300 million. Nobody did anything. It is obvious this was a fraud, not a purchase,” Mr Wetang’ula said.

He added: “We went to Wajir County and found the former governor built a fantastic county headquarters. It was a four-storey building with a mosque, boardrooms and everything at Sh240 million. When you go to other counties, it is the complete opposite.”

He was contributing to a debate triggered by Meru Senator Mithika Linturi’s request seeking a review of the cost ceilings on the grounds that, if enforced, many counties would be sued for breach of contractual agreements.

Nyandarua, Nyamira, Isiolo, Tana River, Samburu, Mandela, Kilifi and Meru had already started construction by the time the Senate set expenditure limits.

Possible lawsuits

“In view of the set ceilings, county governments are now staring at possible unnecessary lawsuits by the contractors, delays in completing the infrastructure development projects and uncertainty as to how they should proceed in instances where it is not possible to go by the Senate resolution,” Mr Linturi said.

Mandera Senator Mohammed Mahamud said they had worked with the Ministry of Public Works and Urban Development to come up with the figures forwarded to the county administrations.

We engaged the ministry because they are supposed to be the advisors on public infrastructure. We looked at prototype designs and said that even the acreage of the offices must be controlled. Most counties do not want to use the figures for obvious reasons,” Mr Mahamud said.

The Senate had suggested the cost of building a governor’s residence be capped at Sh45 million while that for a deputy governor and assembly speaker was capped at Sh35 million.

The houses were also to be limited to a two-acre plot.

The cost of constructing offices for county executive committee members was to be capped at Sh500 million while the cost of building county assembly chambers was to be determined by the number of ward reps.

Chambers with 30 MCAs were to cost a maximum of Sh200 million, those with 31-50 members to cost Sh250 million while those with more members were to cost Sh400 million.

“People want to build mansions that are far beyond the capacities of counties,” Mahamud said.

He continued, “Contracts are terminated and new ones awarded at three times the cost of the original contracts. There must be some way of reining in this rogue behaviour. It is serious. Whereas there is no law that allows us to control how much the ceiling should be, we thought we are giving an advisory opinion to counties so that they go by the figures.”

But Linturi urged the House to meet with all the relevant stakeholders again and consider the plight of the affected counties, with a view to giving further directions on a case-by-case basis.

Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja said he would propose an amendment to the Senate report that the projects which had already started be completed at the lowest cost possible to prevent lawsuits.

No desks

“Where those projects have started, let them be completed. I saw a school in Kinango where children do not have desks yet we want to give a ceiling of Sh150 million for a deputy governor to have a house, Sh200 million for a governor, a speaker and tomorrow it will be senators,” Mr Sakaja said.

He suggested that a freeze be put on the construction of residences of county chiefs until the economy improved.

“The ceiling for those who have not started these projects should be zero. We need to start feeling what other Kenyans are feeling. We cannot say that a county has gone up to 50 per cent completion of a governor’s or deputy governor’s house, yet they have not built a single infrastructure project for the people that we serve. We must refresh our thinking.”