Nakuru Governor Lee Kinyanjui has maintained that the funds his government received from the National Treasury were utilized for the sake of transforming the lives of the residents.
Speaking on Tuesday when he appeared before CIPAK committee, Kinyanjui said that the Sh12.5 billion received from Treasury for the 2017/18 financial year was utilized to the last cent.
He said that claims that he used 53.5 per cent of the money for salaries of his staff instead of the recommended 35 per cent were not only baseless but also ill-motivated.
He asked his critics to find time to look at the records with the controller of the budget before making any claims as far as the usage of funds is concerned. Senator Moses Kajwang (Homabay) had asked the county boss to come clean on the allegations that some funds could not be accounted for.
The first-term governor said that the county government was facing issues of manpower, which compelled him to hire more ECDE teachers and nurses among other professionals to counter the same.
Kinyanjui however, defended the move saying the county did not have enough manpower during his first term thus had to create a provision for effective service delivery.
“Just to bring to your attention chairman and members, at the time we took over Nakuru County did not have a single ECD teacher notwithstanding that our salaries were at 55 per cent and also we did not have enough nurses as required; the ration of our patients to nurses was totally unacceptable,” said Kinyanjui in part, as quoted by Capital FM.
Some of the committee members noted that the county government had not used the funds in a proper manner. They asked him to ensure that the high wage bill doesn’t affect the operations of the county in relations to development.
Isiolo Senator Fatuma Dulo questioned why the disparity was quite big despite the explanation from the governor over the issue.