Community seeks more slots in county cabinet

By DANIEL PSIRMOI

Leaders from Mt Elgon Constituency have rejected a list of ten nominees for the Bungoma County executive committee that was released by Governor Kenneth Lusaka. 

The leaders accused the governor of short-changing residents of the region by allocating only one county Cabinet slot to the Sabaot Community, contrary to a pre-election pledge he made with the locals.

Mt Elgon MP John Serut faulted Mr Lusaka for reneging on the promise he made to the Sabaot community during the campaign period. 

Mr Serut said the community overwhelmingly supported the governor after he assured them of two Cabinet slots.

The MP said the recent appointments show that discrimination of the marginalised community was far from over.

“This is a very bad precedent; our worst fear, which made the people of Mt Elgon to vote against the proposed new Constitution in 2005, has been confirmed. I will use all means to ensure the list is rejected including lobbying members of the county assembly to overturn it, prevailing upon the sole nominee from Mt Elgon to decline to take up his appointment or seek legal redress,” said Serut.

He added: “If none of these work, I will fight for the withdrawal of the constituency from Bungoma County, because there is no use sticking in a county when your presence is insignificant.”

Bungoma County Deputy Speaker Jane Chebet, who is the Cheptais Ward County representative, led the public in a peaceful demonstration to protest the nominees list in Cheptais market on Monday.

“We are dissatisfied with the list of nominees for the county Cabinet posts. We will not accept anything less than one position for Cheptais as the governor had promised us. I will rally my colleagues to shoot down the names if nothing is done,” she charged.

Mr Harry Kimtai, a Mombasa based businessman who contested for the area parliamentary seat, said the list of county executive nominees does not represent the face of the county.

 “Apart from one person, the other members of the county executive committee can comfortably transact business in the Bukusu dialect; where is the face of Bungoma County? Where are the Teso and Sabaots,” posed Kimtai, who vied for the area national assembly seat on a New Ford Kenya party ticket.

He expressed fear that Mt Elgon residents risk being sidelined in the county, adding that they got similar treatment during party nominations.

“The two big parties in Bungoma County, Ford Kenya and New Ford Kenya, exhibited open bias by allocating all the special seats in the county assembly to members from one ethnic community that is dominant in the county. We are greatly disappointed by the sad turn of events,” he said.