A section of lawmakers in the National Assembly now claims Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro leveraged his position as the chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee to unprocedurally appropriate funds to his constituency. The National Assembly in an active session on Tuesday, March 11. Suna East MP Junet Mohamed sensationally accused Nyoro of deliberately and unfairly channelling funds to his constituency’s National Government Constituencies Development Fund kitty as other constituencies lagged behind. Why MPs are unhappy with Ndindi Nyoro According to Junet, his Kiharu colleague took billions to his constituency at the expense of other needy counties and constituencies where the committee had traversed undertaking public participation as regards resources’ allocation.
. Junet, who is also the leader of the minority side in the house, claimed Nyoro shortchanged other areas despite having captured their needs during public participation in the course of the making of the budget. “The Budget and Appropriations Committee of this House had reached to the level where the chair had other MPs going to his constituency for benchmarking, yet all of us are supposed to receive the same amount of NGCDF. What is making our members to go and benchmark in our colleague’s constituency? Because the colleague is receiving more funding because of him being the chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee,” Junet said. Junet accused Nyoro of taking advantage of his position in the powerful committee to do “skewed allocation of resources” to his constituency.
He cited a host of development projects Nyoro commissioned, including tiled classrooms and schools with cabro compounds. According to the Suna East MP, no constituency would undertake such projects within a short time with the current budget constraints. “Which Member of Parliament here can afford through his NG-CDF to build classrooms, plaster them, put windows, put on roofs, put tiles in the classroom, cabros etc, and then advertise on Citizen TV prime time news, which member can do that? Which MP can afford to do that here? With a mere resources of KSh 100 million. None of the 349 members of this House can afford to do that. That can only be done by somebody who has access to bigger resources than any other member,” Junet said. What action did National Assembly take to end resource marginalisation?
Junet’s argument was backed by Kikuyu’s Kimani Ichung’wah, who indirectly accused Nyoro of abusing the public participation phase in the budget-making process to balloon funds to benefit his constituency. READ ALSO Wiper MP Robert Mbui expresses frustration working as Junet Mohamed’s deputy: “It’s difficult” Ichung’wah observed that other constituencies had been denied adequate funds due to the members of the budget committee appropriating more monies to themselves at the expense of their collegues. The Kikuyu MP, who is also the leader of the majority, accused the members of the budget committee of being unprofessional “It will not be business as usual.
This house will not sit back and allow members sitting in the budget committee to use their positions to appropriate money to only their constituencies at the expense of other Kenyans. All these 349 MPs represent people; they come to seek and lobby for resources for their people. It is immoral, unethical and unprofessional for us sitting in those committees,” Ichung’wah said. Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro officiating at a past function in Kiharu constituency. Ichung’wah said the legislature would not allow such schemes again, seeming to speak to Nyoro’s ouster from the committee. He said a new budget committee had been constituted, which would harmonise the sharing of resources in the future.
by Kai Eli
