The Anchor

Garbage Crisis Deepens, as Governor Overrides Mandate of Municipalities

By Mary Munini

Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti has suspended five senior county officials for 60 days, opening a fresh chapter in a long-simmering crisis that has left the county’s municipalities drowning in garbage even as budgets meant to keep them clean were quietly dismantled.

Those sent home are Chief Officer for Urban Development and Housing Maureen Mwende, Director of Administration Joshua Sitienei, Machakos Municipal Manager Bony Kamende, Tala–Kangundo Municipal Manager Dorothy Mutuku, and a procurement officer, John Juma.

The suspensions, according to the county, are to allow investigations into what Wavinya described as “underwhelming performance” that has allegedly led to departmental paralysis.

The paralysis is real and it begun three years after she took office when her then Finance Minister Onesmus Kuyu, with her full support, unilaterally slashed the budget from Kes 45m to Kes 25m, Kes 12m and now at zero under current finance minister Catherine Mutanu.

It was alleged at the time that the cash was being abused by unnamed officials who allegedly collect cash or fuel personal vehicles in designated petrol stations. On Tuesday, Wavinya formalised the claim at a live press conference.

An inquiry by The Anchor confirms that not a single official has been sanctioned or identified as a fuel pilferer and the claim is an official red herring.
But the move to suspend the five comes against a backdrop of revelations already laid bare by The Anchor: a systematic hollowing out of the urban management function, deliberate budget cuts for fuel and maintenance, and a governance breakdown that has paralyzed garbage collection across Machakos, Mavoko and Tala–Kangundo municipalities.

Garbage,Fuel and Power:Why Filth is Uncollected in Machakos County

“It is a coup-de-tat against the Cities and Municipalities Act. Wavinya has toppled these entities and wants to perform the delegated authority of the municipalities boards”, said Evans Ikonge, a governance expert.
Garbage collection is effectively dead.
As previously reported by The Anchor, the department of urban management has been starved of resources over time, with budgets for fuel—the lifeline of garbage trucks—either slashed or rendered unusable.

The result has been predictable: heaps of waste piling up in estates and market centres, rising public health risks, and growing public anger.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Governor Wavinya announced plans to privatise garbage collection, while, for the first time publicly, confirming a key allegation we reported earlier: that fuel allocated for garbage trucks has been routinely siphoned off.

“Staff using fuel cards go to collect cash instead of fuelling garbage collection vehicles. I have brought that to a stop today,” the governor said without giving specific details. Neither did she disclose to the reporters the big news that she had suspended five officials.
She said the county would float a tender inviting local contractors to collect garbage, with one headline condition—that successful bidders must employ local youth.

However, the development of the proposed framework has been met with opposition by Wavinya herself, accusing officials of dragging their feet by setting unsettling conditions ( for Wavinya) to prospective tenderers to ensure, efficiency, accountability transparency and value for money in their scope of work.

According to multiple sources familiar with the process, the suspended officials are members of a technical team working out the tender details, yet only some were isolated for suspension.

The sources say the tender is being accompanied by conditions that the county itself must establish before privatising garbage collection.

These include requirements that the county gazette and fence all dumping sites, that  the dumpsites be fully staffed, install a weighbridge to account for quantities of garbage delivered to protect county against fraudulent claims.
Insiders warn that these conditions are emerging in a county where dumping sites are yet to be gazetted, most sites remain unfenced, and no weighbridge system currently exists.

Multiple sources say Wavinya wants the tender awarded on an As-Is basis, setting the lowest possible thresholds for prospective tenderes.

Officials fear that the World Bank-linked tender would catch up with them if they fail to establish key accountability framework. “There lies the battleground between Wavinya and officials”, Mr. Ikonge, who is familiar with World Bank programmes added.
The Anchor has previously reported that a Machakos-based businessman—whose name has been withheld—has already been earmarked for the tender, initially valued at Sh54 million annually. This figure is notably Sh9 million higher than the Sh45 million fuel budget that previously sustained garbage collection countywide before it was cut.
More troubling still, a deep throat within the procurement chain at the Governor’s office now intimates that the projected cost could be escalated to as much as Sh 100 million to graduate it to a cash cow once extraneous components are factored in.
The suspensions, therefore, raise uncomfortable questions: are senior officials being punished for failures rooted in deliberate budgetary strangulation, or is the county clearing the ground ahead of a controversial privatization?
While Governor Wavinya claims the move is about restoring order, county veterans familiar with whitehouse tactics are exchanging knowing glances as suspended staff become fall guys. In the end, official  sabotage of service delivery is left untouched.

For residents of Machakos municipalities, the test is whether garbage finally leaves their streets—or whether a crisis first engineered through neglect is now being converted into an expensive private monopoly at public cost.

Stay Anchored

www.theanchormedia.org