Huge debts inherited from the previous regime to blame for woes facing Nakuru health sector, says CS Mwaura

County secretary Samuel Mwaura was at pains to explain the challenges in the county service delivery blaming the “the previous regime” for initiating numerous projects without proper budget plans.

Appearing before a panel of elected members of County Assembly Dr Mwaura struggled to defend Governor Susan Kihika’s administration from allegations of poor service delivery.

The panel summoned him to respond to concerns by the public relating to service delivery in the county

Stanley Karanja, the MCA Naivasha East Ward sought explanation on why there were inefficiencies in the Nakuru health sector which he claimed is “in the ICU and in need of resuscitation by itself,”

In his defense Dr Mwaura claimed the sector is facing two issues, inherited debt and stalled projects.

“When we came in hospitals such as the one in Naivasha did not have a functioning lab this is because of the debt accrued to the supplier for reagents and this problem was across the county, we have tried to restructure this debt and this why these hospitals are operational at the moment,” he says.

Additionally, “The previous regime had started so many projects with a little budget for example the Maai Mahiu hospital which cost around Sh 200 million was started with Sh 30 million shillings and this cuts across the projects in the county, we have tried to allocate money and spread the money across the projects,”.

He admitted that there are health facilities that have one staff while others that have been equipped but they lack personnel.

“This is an issue of budget, and we are working to solve it,” he said.

His responses, however, did not convince most of the members which saw him promise to give a comprehensive report on the status of the projects in question.

The issues of poor roads in the county have also been a matter of concern for the better part of this current regime tenure and the Imarisha Barabara program was launched to address this menace.

Mwaura reassured the members that the project is going on well. However, the members had conflicting opinions with all of them disagreeing with him.

The Majority leader, William Mutai gave an example of the machines that have been doing work in one ward for the last four months, yet it is supposed to serve nine wards in three different sub counties.

Another member raised issues of substandard works that are being conducted on the roads.

The Deputy Speaker, Anthony Kamau decried that the roads issue is causing an uproar in the public and it is tarnishing their image and reputation branding them as liars to their people.

The county secretary promised to address the issues addressed by the members in due course.