Blunders by Machakos governor Wavinya Ndeti are threatening to make her the most hated and unpopular elected leader in the history of Ukambani region.
Wavinya Ndeti
Upon election and taking of the oath, Wavinya embarked on a mission to “return the money she used on her two previous unsuccessful campaigns” in the shortest time possible. As a result, the people fo Machakos are now seeing a woman very different from the one they had voted for and whom they had assumed would have motherly instincts and empathy to their suffering.
Mwangangi
Soon after the election before taking the oath of office, Wavinya would ever be in the company of her deputy Francis Mwangangi. It was at that time that the newly elected Machakos leaders under the leadership of Wavinya and Mwangangi met with all the 40 elected MCAs and made agreements and commitments which to date none has been fulfilled.
Wavinya took over from Alfred Mutua. Machakos is the home turf of ex-UDA chairman Johnson Muthama said to have quit politics but hovering over.
Among the issues agreed on by the leaders those early days were that the county assembly be financially autonomous, holding functions accompanying the governor or deputy governor to portray unity and introducing ward development fund all which have remained a pipe dream.
It appears Wavinya wanted to hoodwink MCAs to ensure they voted for her choice of county speaker, county executive committee members, chief officers among others and that was all. The county assembly has become a controlled house by a small group of MCAs who are on a weekly payroll and who are doing business with the county government.
In short, Wavinya has captured the county assembly. Come the appointment of CECMs, COs, directors and commissioners, she is one-woman show.
Majority of the those appointed come from Mitaboni ward in Kathiani and Sabaki in Mavoko, many of them related to the semiliterate chief of staff Lawrence Ngovi. It is like only a village in Mitaboni, Kathiani and Sabaki in Mavoko voted for Wavinya and Mwangangi in the last elections.
The CECMs and COs claim they bought the positions from Wavinya and to their surprise, they were forced to sign undated resignation letter before taking oath. The act of being forced to sign resignation letters has killed their morale to work and this explains why there is poor performance by the county government making many people start regretting why they voted for Wavinya as a governor of Machakos county. Those who interact with her closely say she does not understand professionalism at all and always appears insecure and exhibits a lot of incompetence and ignorance. They say she is a paragon of mediocrity and it is unfortunate that the people of Machakos have her as their leader.
When it comes to MPs from the eight constituencies in the county, Wavinya broke the agreements she had with them before the election, of working as a team, consulting about the development of the county, employing qualified people from each of the constituencies and working as a team politically. The agreements with MPs before last elections had made majority of them to go out of their way to use their resources and their political skills to campaign for Wavinya and her deputy Mwangangi.
To date, none of the MPs including those from her Wiper party is working with her. After betraying MPs, Wavinya moved on to acquire her former party CCU which she is planning to use and is now busy identifying candidates for the next elections in 2027 in case Wiper does not hand her direct certificate.
In Machakos Town constituency, Wavinya is believed to be preparing to field Water CECM Catherine Mutanu. In Kathiani she is grooming Ngovi. In Mavoko, she is fronting Philip Kilonzo, Yatta is Francis Maliti and Masinga will go to Onesmus Muia her finance minister. In Mwala, Kangundo and Matungulu are yet to have CCU candidates. There has been Friday staff kamata kamata (arrests) by police ordered by Wavinya through Ngovi something that has annoyed county employees and their union leaders. It is worth to note that Wavinya introduced unofficial structure in the county government of her campaign team headed by coordinators where subcounty and ward administrators and MCAs are supposed to be reporting to.
Machakos county people have rejected these coordinators but Wavinya continues to force county workers and MCAs to work with them. Machakos voters did not elect coordinators but Wavinya came up with a procurement system and through finance CECM Muia brought another former Industrial Area Prison remandee and Masinga Central ward political reject one Joseph Mathuki as overall county procurement director.
Overall county director of procurement is an illegal position made to auction county contracts, just a straight way of looting dry the county coffers. The creation of an illegal overall director of procurement by Wavinya through Muia explains how she has managed to auction county tenders to the highest bidders who are all Somalis from Mandera county in Northern Kenya. Machakos county devolution money is benefiting another county that has its own devolution money. Many Machakos county voters wonder how many Kambas are employed by Mandera county government if any or are doing supplies or contracts there. Under Wavinya, she appointed nonKambas to all critical departments such as health, water, public works, finance, among others with Somalis being majority.
They openly claim they bought the positions. This explains why Kambas are bitter with Wavinya since they voted and it is only her and close allies who are benefiting, there is little in terms of performance by the governor, her appointees do not understand local people and their problems and are busy making as much money as possible. The implementation of projects has seen many wards go without any single project while others have over 20 projects covering various sectors. Since she came to power, Wavinya county administration has been accused of high level corruption and mismanagement like is a case where former sports CECM Onesmus Muasya aka Sky resigned after he and his team were forced by Wavinya, Muia and Ngovi to withdraw almost Sh20 million in cash from the department’s sports account and delivered the same to White House the governor’s office, which he complied and resigned soon after.
Many of the people who have come into contact with Wavinya Ndeti including county staff accuse her of poor communication, poor leadership, incompetence and poor personal relations. There has been fear that after Wavinya came in as governor and started abusing senior staff telling them they used their bodies to secure promotions and others corrupted, many of Mutua remnants who remained have been collecting corruption evidence and secretly forwarding the same to Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission since they came to learn Wavinya is greedier than Mutua and that, it is a matter of time before she is brought to justice. Almost a year to her leadership, Governor Wavinya is said to have deserted and sidelined her deputy Mwangangi. The week the two took the oath of office, Wavinya transferred the chief officer who was responsible for deputy governor’s office together with the budget to her office where it is administered to date. The governor single handedly decides on what to be purchased or not to be bought including sugar in her deputy’s office.
Our source in governor’s office who requested not to be named said Wavinya will do anything to frustrate her deputy financially and that is why she transferred the deputy’s budget to be administered from her office. During the early days of the Wavinya administration, there was vehicle inspection exercise led by the governor and the deputy where some of the vehicles which were being used in the office of the deputy governor were taken without any reason or informing him. Those at governor’s office were aware DG Mwangangi was being fought slowly by the governor. Though the governor denies fighting Mwangangi claiming she is taking good care of the DG, the truth is that the governor is in charge of the DG’s budget just to frustrate that office, a source said.
We also noted that Wavinya has denied the DG any role in the county government including any appointment to any docket. Our source told us Wavinya fears Mwangangi who happens to be a formidable grassroots mobiliser, much liked by the people, and has a huge political support across the county hence the frustrations. The source revealed that were it not for Mwangangi, Wavinya would not have made it as governor of Machakos. Though we did not speak to DG Mwangangi, sources close to him referred us to governor or her office for comments but added that the focus for the DG currently is to join hands with other leaders, Machakos county people in doing development and politics in future.
