My life in danger, says Busia County Assembly security man

Busia County Assembly Sergeant at Arms James Lwanyoni. [Ignatius Odanga, Standard]

On June 18, 2018, security guards manning Busia County Assembly gate intercepted 17 computers stuffed in a private car.

The guards then made a distress call to county assembly Sergeant at Arms James Lwanyoni notifying him of the interception.

Mr Lwanyoni asked the driver of the car ferrying the accessories if he had a letter authorizing taking the items away but he had none.

He then asked the driver to get the gate pass. The driver went ahead to get a letter from the Procurement Officer Ephraim Kwena addressed to the Managing Director Coumarind Enterprise, stating that the machines needed to be repaired.

“The following seventeen (CPUs) have been released to you for the purpose of repair. You will be expected to return after repair for inspection,” read the letter from Kwena dated June 18th.

Lwanyoni was not convinced by Kwena’s explanation since the CPUs were yet to be used after being delivered at the county assembly.

“Nobody had used the CPUs. They were new so I asked the driver to go back and tell the Procurement Officer that the letter had been rejected,” said Lwanyoni.

Mr Kwena then wrote a second letter explaining that the Procurement Department had not accepted the machines and therefore they should be replaced.

“The following seventeen CPUs have not been accepted by the Procurement Department, therefore, have been released to you (Managing Director, Coumarind Enterprise) for the purpose of replacement. You will be expected to return them for inspection,” second letter from Kwena dated June 18th stated.

The second letter was again rejected by the security officers of the county. Kwena then decided to withdraw his earlier statement that the CPUs were to undergo some repair.

“I hereby withdraw my initial statement for the release of computers for repair. It was miscommunication. The computers were new and not accepted by the inspection committee and were actually being returned to the supplier for replacement and were not the ones being repaired as I thought,” reads Kwena’s third letter to Mr Lwanyoni dated June 18th.

The Sergeant at Arms ordered the computer accessories returned where they had initially been stored after failing to get justifiable reasons to warrant the same leave the county assembly.

On June 28 he took the CPUs to Busia Police Station and recorded the statement. However, for the past one week Lwanyoni has been receiving threats from unknown people of dire consequences for blocking the release of computers.

He has recorded the statement at the Busia police station and booked under occurrence book as 2/10/2018. “My life is in danger. I thought I was doing my job little did I know some people had their plan which I blocked,” said Lwanyoni. 

Busia OCPD Masai Makau said investigation into the CPUs was at an advanced stage. The management of the assembly have not spoken about the matter. 

“Since the day I took the CPUs at the police station nobody moved to the police to claim them,” said Lwanyoni.