County loses funds to fake refuse project youth groups
What you need to know:
- A number of groups, turned out to be ghosts, were picked to offer garbage collection services in the eight sub-counties and have been earning Sh99,000 monthly. The groups have not been offering the services.
- “The people we trusted have abused the system we had put in place and we are not going to continue with them. They collected money from us monthly but did very little in keeping our towns and markets clean,” he added.
The Migori County government has exposed a racket by youth groups in a garbage collection programme that has seen the devolved unit lose millions of shillings.
A number of groups, turned out to be ghosts, were picked to offer garbage collection services in the eight sub-counties and have been earning Sh99,000 monthly. The groups have not been offering the services.
An investigation showed that employees of the defunct local authorities were still the ones sweeping markets and bus parks, putting on the spotlight the role of the youth groups.
The Nation learnt that some of the 47 youth groups contracted last year to offer cleaning services, only existed on paper.
INVESTIGATIONS LAUNCHED
“ We have already stopped all of them and launched investigations to establish the extent of this racket. I will tell you how many groups were ghosts after we complete our investigations,” said Mr Joshua Ngwala, the chief officer in the department of Environment and Natural Resources, that short-listed the groups.
Mr Ngwala said they will formulate new policies top govern the collection of garbage in the county.
“The people we trusted have abused the system we had put in place and we are not going to continue with them. They collected money from us monthly but did very little in keeping our towns and markets clean,” he added.
Mr Ngwala said they are going to employ a new method that will give value for money.
The Nation further established that some assembly members had a hand in the scandal.
