Heaps of garbage threaten to choke Kisumu City

Kisumu Town in stinking, quite literally. Heaps of garbage have littered markets, bus parks and streets due to a dispute over cash.

Ideally, the City Management Board should carry out maintenance of the town. It should collect garbage, ensure repairs so that the city functions well. The county should allocate the board money to do this.

However, the board is yet to be created meaning these functions cannot be discharged as expected. In the meantime, the county appointed Ms Doris Ombasa the acting City Manager.

Ms Ombara has accused the government of failing to release money she needs to clean up the town in a dispute that is threatening Kisumu’s image.

Ms Ombara says out of the Sh142 million budgeted for her team’s recurrent expenditure in the current financial year, she only received Sh37 million.

“I have written to the assembly complaining that we are yet to receive the Sh90 million earmarked for development. To get funding has been a tough task. It has involved pleading and begging,” she said in the letter to the assembly on January 25.

But finance executive George Ongaya said they had released money to Ms Ombara’s team. “The city managers are only looking for excuses. We gave them Sh11.9 million last week and we expected them to start cleaning up the city,” he said.

WASTE FLOATING FREELY

Heaps of garbage have been piling since last November. Residents and traders at Kisumu main bus terminal, Kibuye and Jubilee markets, among other areas, fear for their health.

Mr Seth Kanga, Kisumu bus park chairman, said problems started when a contract the county signed with Equator Bottlers – a franchise of Coca Cola Company– expired. Coca Cola was to advertise for free and clean up the town in return.

A spot check revealed broken water pipes and open sewers with human waste floating freely. Stench of refuse is unbearably. Traders have given Governor Jack Ranguma a week to act or they refuse to pay taxes.

At the bus park, passengers have suffered injuries after falling into the open drainages. Vehicles too, often get stuck.

“They cannot continue collecting taxes everyday with all the suffering we are subjected to,” Mr Kanga said on Tuesday.

Ms Jane Mundika, a trader said: “It is messy here. We pay Sh30 every day in taxes and we are now demanding that the city provides services.”

Senator Anyang’ Nyong’o says the problems will only be solved once the city management board is formed.

“How does the county expect us to do this business with all the dirt that has created a home for flies?” Mr Sam Onyango, who operates a butchery at the bus park, said.

The blame game on the city’s cash crisis started when city manager Doris Ombara wrote to the County Assembly saying she had not received a cent of the Sh90 million budgeted for development in the area this financial year.

Ms Ombara said that of the Sh142 million budgeted for recurrent expenditure, the city had only received Sh37 million.

“To get funding has been a tough and uphill task. It has involved pleading and begging,” Ms Ombara said in the letter dated January 25.

HAD RELEASED CASH

However, Kisumu county executive for finance George Ongaya on Tuesday said they had released cash to the city.

“The city managers are only using the claim of lack of cash as an excuse. We released Sh11.9 million to them last week. They should have moved and commissioned works on the affected sites,” Mr Ongaya said.

He blamed delays in the disbursement on the national government saying the county has only received cash for up to November last year.

“We get monies every month. Much as there are occasional delays, the city gets its allocation as budgeted,” the finance executive said.

But Kisumu senator Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o is of the opinion that the problems in the lakeside town will be sorted when a city management board is created.

The senator has intimated that there was a deliberate delay to form the board which grants the Kisumu autonomy to formulate policies.

Governor Jack Ranguma has only indicated, without much detail, that the process of forming the board had begun.

“We had advertised for the positions. The ratification of the applicants is ongoing,” he said in a recent interview.