The tiff between Bungoma Governor Wycliffe Wangamati and members of the county assembly is far from over as the two arms of the devolved unit engaged in a war of words yesterday amid a two-month salary delay for county workers.
While the governor accuses assembly speaker Emmanuel Situma of not being a neutral arbiter, the regional House says the governor has failed to follow the law by tabling documents out of set legal timelines.
The biggest casualties in this fallout are county and assembly employees who have gone without salaries for two months now, creating disquiet among staff, some of whom are now on strike.
"In our first supplementary budget, I provided for extra funds for salary for new staff. Unfortunately, the MCAs removed it from the budget, creating a deficit in some departments," Mr Wangamati said in an interview with Sulwe FM.
The county boss said he was already engaging the Controller of Budget and the National Treasury to solve the impasse that has seen staff go without salaries for two months.
"All the Counties appear before Public Accounts Committee. We are done with our session and responded to all queries. We were handed a clean bill of health," he said.
"Since I came into office, our staff have never missed a salary. We have always paid our staff on time. Now we have a situation where the Speaker shuts the Assembly on the pretext of Covid-19 instead of tabling the main budget with a singular aim of frustrating Wangamati."
Bungoma Speaker Emmanuel Situma on tiff between executive and MCAs
The governor said that he similarly appeared before the Health Committee in the wake of special audits for use of Covid-19 funds in Kenya.
"We responded to all queries. While Senator Moses Wetangula was present during my appearance, he did not raise the queries he raises in funerals here in Bungoma,” he said.
Governor Wangamati further said that he has also appeared before the Finance and Budget Committee to respond to allegations of withholding county funds.
"While there have been claims that the executive has withheld county funds, the Controller of Budget’s report stated otherwise,” he said.
Mr Wangamati said that Mr Situma had failed Bungoma and needs to remember that he is a referee and not a partisan leader in the Assembly.
Bungoma County Assembly Speaker Emmanuel Situma addressing the media in his office on July 1, 2021.
Photo credit: Brian Ojamaa | Nation Media Group
But in a quick rejoinder, Mr Situma said the governor has been trying to arm-twist the assembly to sing to his tune at the expense of their oversight role.
"Wangamati was at Senate last week and it emerged from the Controller of Budget report that he had received money for workers’ salaries for the months of May and June. But instead of paying the staff he paid suppliers and contractors who are associated with top officials in his government,” Situma said.
The Speaker said that in the past two months the county had receive Sh1.5 billion, out of which the assembly had only received Sh63 million for salaries of the MCAs alone.
"Bungoma is among the 13 hot spot counties in Lake Region that have been seen as having a high rate of the third wave of Covid-19 infections and that is one of the reasons we closed the assembly," he said.
"We only want the executive to give as our share of the allocation so that we can procure necessities,” he said.
