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One of the greatest achievements of the Narc government that will go into the annals of history is the introduction of the Constituency Development Fund that allocates a percentage of the national earnings to be directly managed by an administrative unit based at the locations and the constituencies. The location committees determine the priority projects for the respective locations and forward them to the constituency committees who in turn forward the same to the district committees. Based on these, the ministry of finance releases the funds to be distributed accordingly. This facility has changed the face of many ordinary Kenyans through bursaries, enhanced access to medical care, better roads, fantastic schools and proximity to fundamentals of life like water and electricity.

In Nyatike, the situation is awful. The procedure is somersaulted in that the constituency committee decides what should be done in all the locations, thereby skewing the distribution in their interest. They have perfected the art of fulfilling the requirements of the CDF act through the back door where a few people conspire to concoct project proposals supposedly submitted by a location committee. They again form phantom companies through their cronies and relatives and advertise ceremonial tenders only to award the contracts to the "successful bidders". It is quite irritating to note that a top member of the constituency committee monopolizes the transport and major supplies to majority of the projects, indirectly through his henchmen for a fee to them.

Whereas it is normal for brothers to sit in the constituency committee, the idea is suspect. How do you justify the secretary to the committee taking up a separate tender to construct the patron’s palatial home? I recently visited one of the water dams purportedly funded by the CDF at kshs 1.049 million but found nothing substantial had been done to Sagenya Dam in Kaler location. Late last year, I visited Macalder Health centre where kshs. 2.7 million has so far been allocated and the custodian at the hospital pointed at a simple building to justify that amount. Everybody is discussing a dam in Sagama which has so far consumed kshs 2 million with nothing much to show for the amount. Macalder Youth Polytechnic has swallowed kshs 1.2 million, while a water project in Muhuru has been continuously funded to the tune of kshs 2.12 million. There are so many projects that only appear on paper with no tangible activity on the ground. Several cattle dips are claimed to have been constructed at over kshs 0.9 million, with a lot of allocations for roads and bridges that are suspect. Tanganyika road, together with Tito bridge along the same road has taken over kshs 3.1 million. Big amounts of money are allocated to imaginary water dams with little to show for. The committee has mastered the skill of fragmenting the allocations into numerous tiny amounts to obscure the trail and fool the constituents that they are balanced while actually not much will be done with the tiny allocation. Some locations have received meager allocations with others over funded, based on their relevance to the local power brokers.

There is also the belief that the bursary allocation goes to the undeserving students, with those closer to influential god-fathers having an upper hand while the destitute drop out of school. Whereas each constituency in Kenya had been allocated kshs 1 million for constructing an office, Nyatike constituents cannot understand why part of their CDF is still going towards the same venture. In the 2005-2006 allocation, kshs 0.8 million was allocated towards the office and in the 2006-2007 financial year kshs 3.19 million has been allocated. What kind of office costs this much in the rural areas? Where did our kshs. 1 million go? To compound the problems, whatever is allocated to the schools and hospitals come in bits and in other instances seriously delayed. Recently, so many sign posts have been erected, especially in Muhuru division, indicating the CDF funded projects, some of which are false or exaggerated.

Initially, the members of parliament were fooling the people that they were in opposition party and could not get the funds to develop their areas but the CDF facility has shown who they are. The utilization of this fund will lead to serious inequality in the various constituencies where those that uses their allocations prudently reap maximum returns for its people while those that misuse theirs stagnate. Nyatike risks finding itself in the lowest rungs of the development ladder unless the CDF committee management changes. Over to the National Management Committee and by extension Justice Aaron Ringera, either of you must save the Kenyans being plundered in Nyatike.

Elias Odhaimbo Ratteng, Nyatike Constituency e-mail: eliao2002 AT yahoo doT com

Akelo nyar Kager, jaluo@jaluo.com

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