Questions as top government officials purchase multi-million houses barely nine months into office
3 min read
Purchase of multi-million houses by MPs and other senior government official raises just months in office raises questions on expenditure
Purchase of multi-million houses by MPs and other senior government official raises just months in office raises questions on expenditure.
Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka has expressed concern over government officials’ spending amid cash crunch in the country.
Onyonka, who spoke on Citizen TV’s Day Break program on Tuesday, claimed that only nine months after taking office, several legislators are purchasing multimillion-shilling homes in Nairobi’s wealthy neighborhoods.
“Members of the current elite, whether Members of Parliament or Senators, have invaded Karen. People are buying houses costing Ksh.120 million and Ksh.150 million in a period of just nine months,” said the senator.
Citing Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, Onyonka said the government needs to tame over-expenditure.
“Lee Kuan Yew, when he was fixing Singapore, the first thing he did was believe in a meritocracy; he picked the best Singaporeans,” he said.
The senator claimed that President William Ruto’s administration is full of inefficient public employees who are just worsening the already troubled economy, in contrast to Yew, whom he commended for selecting the people best prepared for government employment and holding them accountable.
“The same is happening in the county governments. There is nowhere we are going as a country… until we fix certain fundamentals about the management of public resources,” argued Onyonka.
His remarks comes amid an ownership tussle for a home in Nairobi’s Karen suburb between Labour and Social Protection Cabinet Secretary (CS) Florence Bore and Gatanga MP Edward Muriu.
Muriu and his wife are accusing CS Bore of forcibly occupying the house that he is selling after making an offer of Ksh.90 million while they had said the final asking price was Ksh.120 million.
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But Bore maintains that she signed her part of the agreement for the sale and submitted the agreement to the MP’s lawyers to sign on their part.
In addition, Ruto’s Economic Advisory Council chair David Ndii also questioned state wastage amid claims government spent Ksh.14 billion on travel in the nine months ending March.
Ndii, in response to a Twitter user who questioned whether the travels had the best interests of the common Kenyan, wrote; “Government is wasteful. And this administration has an itchy feet problem.”
According to the Controller of Budget (CoB), travel perks for foreign and local trips jumped by Ksh.1.62 billion from Ksh.12.4 billion, the highest government spending on travel in a similar period in at least five years.
Onyonka agreed, further expressing concerns about legislators he said have been requesting new vehicles after assuming office.
“To me, what David Ndii is talking about is, if you are a leader in the National Assembly, why do you need nine new four-wheel-drive vehicles when the ones used by the previous leaders are still there?” posed the senator.
“We are behaving as if we are a first-world. We are a lower mid-level country that is struggling with its recurrent expenditure and borrowing heavily,” he added.
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