This archive report was first published on 1 November 2019.
Busia County Governor Sospeter Ojaamong's administration has redeployed procurement staff to county departments, a move that could lead to friction with the county assembly.
On January 18, 2019, Governor Ojaamong issued cheques to needy but bright students at the Agricultural Training Centre, as seen in the photo above.
According to The Standard, an ad hoc committee constituted by ward representatives in June to investigate the non-implementation of development projects in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 budgets recommended delegating procurement functions to county government departments.
However, Governor Ojaamong's administration has redeployed staff who worked in procurement at the county headquarters to the departments, sparking concerns that this move may not align with the ad hoc committee's recommendations.
Procurement is one of the six directorates under the Department of Finance, Information and Communication Technology, and Economic Planning.
Deputy Governor Moses Mulomi confirmed that the deployment of staff was the first step towards decentralizing procurement services, citing the need to employ more staff to achieve this goal.
However, an implementation committee member expressed concerns that the move was a 'well-calculated rush' by the executive to hoodwink implementation committee members into believing that procurement functions had been decentralized entirely.
