An aspirant for the West Mugirango parliamentary seat went missing after he was allegedly overwhelmed by bills and reimbursement of funds understandably used by his supporters during a meeting he had convened at a Nyamira hotel.
Mr James Mamboleo, a city lawyer, had called for a meeting of 30 members running his WhatsApp group before at least 150 people showed up at the venue claiming to be his supporters.
According to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity given his cordial relationship with the aspirant, Mamboleo skipped the event after learning about the unexpected number of attendees, giving the organisers a difficult time in settling the bills.
“It’s true that our host went missing after we had convened a consultative meeting. This is politics and you should be alert at all times because supporters are always monitoring your whereabouts. When such an incident happens, the host should come personally to address the matter instead of leaving it to his juniors to do it on his behalf,” stated the source.
“You cannot hide and then switch off the phone when actually you have been told that the attendees had exceeded the figure that had been budgeted for. We had to use our cash to meet the expenses including giving the participants fare back home,” added the source.
However, Mamboleo dismissed the incident as a ‘creation’ of his opponents, and insisted that he had catered for the bills of 30 people at Fraiser Resort, who were expected to attend.
“I only knew on 30 people and I cleared it with the organisers. I got held up somewhere and so I didn’t run away. The circus is a creation of my opponents. I understand people might have come in numbers and that doesn’t mean I was unable to refund them. It’s only that my phone was off at that time because I was in a meeting,” he said.