Senate Speaker Kenneth Makelo Lusaka has reportedly hired one Bungona-based journalist attached to mainstream media to help create scandals out of Wangamati’s projects.
According to a source privy to the goings on at Kufwela Centre, Lusaka is reportedly using this trick to paint Wangamati as an incompetent and corrupt leader in an attempt to put him on the defense – at least for once.
In what paints an extreme picture of desperation, Lusaka, through an operative based at the Kufwela Command Centre and an MCA, has paid some Sh70,000 to this journalist to fish for every possible scandal out of Wangamati’s projects.
According to the source who requested anonymity for fear of being victimised, the projects targeted for smear campaign include:
(1) The milk plant
(2) Sunrise cabro road done under the urban upgrade programme
(3) The dual carriageway
(4) Stadium
(5) Kimilili Market
(6) 300-bed capacity at BCRH
(7) 100-bed capacity
Through our intel, we can reveal that the Operative at Command Centre was the architect of the whole plot and was responsible for the initial meeting, budgeting and actual payment of the money to the journalist.
The MCA, known to brag about his deep knowledge of government procedures and standing orders and who recently ditched ODM for Ford Kenya, was tasked to find Wangamati’s errors of omission or commission in the course of implementing these projects.
Among other things, the MCA is supposed to ascertain whether Wangamati overshot the budget for each project or not, tendering, BQs and completion certificates.
Besides getting footage to work with, the brown envelope journalist was also tasked to have his media house run the story and to share the footage with other journalists.
Already, this reporter has acquired footage of the new building earmarked for a milk processing plant in Webuye and Sunrise cabro road.
According to our source, the reporter has already filed the two stories to purporting them to be investigations.
On the building earmarked for a dairy, he says its a white elephant, built at an exaggerated cost and sold to residents as a factory.
A fact check, however, reveals that the state-of-the-art building is awaiting installation of equipment funding from the US government through the USAID.
On Sunrise road, the reporter cites poor workmanship with a dubious engineer from Kabula corroborating the far-fetched argument.
To lend credibility to this farcical story, the MCA has been tasked to organise residents to “protest” the poor workmanship with the reporter conveniently detailed to cover the same.
The journalist is reportedly under pressure to have these stories run because he has already been paid part of the payment.
The planned hate campaign follows Lusaka’s recent announcement of his intention to unseat Wangamati who assumed power in 2017, flooring Lusaka with a margin of 20,000 votes.
It’s said that Lusaka has been struggling to discredit Wangamati’s projects after realising that fighting such projects is giving Wangamati more sympathy votes than expected to decampaign him.
Lusaka, who became famous after his regime bought ten wheelbarrows each at Ksh109,000, is seeking come back to the Bungoma Gubernatorial seat after serving 5 years as Senate Speaker.
Lusaka will be vying on Ford Kenya ticket which is affiliated to Deputy President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza Alliance while Wangamati is defending his seat on the newly-launched Democratic Action Party of Kenya (DAP-K).
While Lusaka is struggling to recall any of his development projects under his belt, Wangamati’s Projects like the Webuye Milk Processing plant, the Dual Carriageway, the Scholarship Programme for the Standard Eight children from needy families as well as opening up roads across the County, have spoken for themselves.
Wangamati is also counting on the 300-bed capacity maternity wing at the Bungoma County Refferal Hospital, farm inputs for farmers in the villages as well as the construction of Vocational Training Institutes.