Misgivings over stalled Mwai Kibaki legacy projects in Othaya

Othaya, Kenya: Several projects that were signed off  in Mwai Kibaki’s native Othaya constituency when he was president have been abandoned.

Even though local people question the rationale for the commissioning some of these projects, they say their abandonment casts a shadow of Kibaki’s legacy in a constituency he represented for 38 years.

The abandoned Othaya District Hospital appears to symbolise this stigma—the Sh400 million of tax funds pumped to upgrade it to a Level 5 hospital now a footnote in history.

Ironically some residents of Othaya seem to believe  that this amount would have been better utilised to improve the services offered by the larger Nyeri Provincial Hospital, which serves as a regional referral facility.

The discordant voices are now quite audible. “Will residents of the furthest part of Kieni, for example, travel all the way to Othaya to seek treatment? This money ought to have been used to improve the provincial hospital, which is in the nerve centre of the county. Othaya is on the edge of the county and the facility will be underutilised,” said Maina Mugo, a resident of Nyeri.

  For the 38 years Kibaki was the area MP, none of the projects he commissioned or supported collapsed or stalled midway, Esau Kioni, a former advisor to the ex-president, said.  But the Othaya hospital upgrade is only one of many of stalled multi-million shilling    projects that have run aground in the constituency — ventures local people are now calling the Kibaki legacy projects.  Several roads earmarked for tarmacking were either abandoned before work began or have since stalled.

These include the Tambaya-Witima-Kagumo-Kwa Ngechu road where construction equipment was withdrawn from the site shortly after the 2013 General Election. The Othaya Hospital-Gathumbi-Kairuthi road has also been abandoned. Other proposed projects like the Birithia-Kagonye-Kihomeas and Gaturuturu- Gitugi roads, which serve rich tea growing areas, have never been touched.

When the former head of state toured the area in 2012,  he was accompanied by suspended Roads Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau, then Permanent Secretary in this docket. Residents of Othaya are now accusing the national government of disregarding these projects. 

Last year during the height of campaigns for a by-election that never was in Othaya, Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia visited the Othaya Hospital and pledged that the government would provide an additional Sh200 million to complete the upgrade.

“Not a single penny has been released even though he had promised that the funds would be released within three months,” Kioni said. He noted that medical equipment worth Sh300 million donated by the government were lying idle at the Constituency Development Fund offices. “Some of the equipment have been stolen, while others are being moved to hospitals like the Nyeri Provincial Hospital and Karatina District Hospital,” Kioni observed.

Drugs had to be moved to other clinics before they could expire.

But CS Macharia attributed the delay in opening the hospital to under-quotation by the contractor. “The contractor appeared to have under-quoted the project. Even after spending more than Sh501 million, there was little progress and we decide to stop the work,” Macharia said.

The government has been trying to get more funds and that the National Treasury had released an additional Sh170 million. 

Macharia anticipates that President Uhuru Kenyatta will open the hospital in mid-August.