This archive report was first published on 18 June 2020.
Kenya's public projects are facing a new era of accountability, thanks to Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang'i's stern warning to contractors who delay their work. Speaking at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), CS Matiang'i revealed that he had ordered the arrest of a contractor in Nyandarua County who had not completed a 4.5km road in four years.
CS Matiang'i, who had just returned from a meeting with Western Kenya leaders, directed the police to track down the contractor and present him in court to be charged. He expressed frustration at the contractor's inaction, saying, 'We have been moving around and come across cases where contractors are basically just playing games or some of them are just coming from that old school [of thought] where they believed in navigating their way around by bribing public officials.'
CS Matiang'i emphasized the importance of completing projects on time, saying, 'We must love our country enough to do the right thing and do the work that we have been assigned to do. We are employed by the people of Kenya to get this work done; we cannot lie around pretending and wasting public resources.'
He also highlighted the issue of incomplete projects, citing the example of the Lake Victoria North Water Company, which had claimed to have completed boreholes in Western Kenya but had only half of them yielding water.
