Blow as Kisii Assembly rejects Arati nominee

Kisii Governor Simba Arati has suffered a sigficant blow after the County Assembly Tuesday refused to approve his Chief Executive Committee appointee for Agriculture.

The vetting and subsequent swearing in of other appointees, however, went ahead as planned.

The function took place outside his office at Gusii Stadium.

Beatrice Doyle, the person the Governor had forwarded is said to had failed to present her academic papers during vetting to the board last week.

Doyle’s degree was said to be suspect.

A board official said she failed to present evidential professional value to the ministry Arati had appointed her to.

And speaking during the swearing in Tuesday, Arati said he felt ‘disappointed’ but not ‘ dampened’ by the turn of events in the assembly.

“I felt disappointed, yes, but not dampened … I thank the House for the wonderful work nonetheless,” Arati said.

At least nine CECs were sworn in by Kisii Court Deputy Registrar Dorcas Mc Andere.

Among those sworn in are Leah Bwari (Medical Service, Public Health and Sanitation), Kennedy Abincha (Finance, Economic Planning and ICT), Grace Nyarangi (Lands and Housing) and Cyrus Nyabicha (Infrastructure, roads).

Others are Alfred Ndemo (Trade Tourism and Industry) , Ronald Nyakweba (Water, Environment and Natural Resources) , Daniel Ondabu (Public Service and County administration) and Eric Miyienda (Sports, Culture and Arts)

During the function, outgoing County Secretary Patrick Lumumba advised the new executives to abide by code of ethics and never breach especially that of secrecy.

On behalf of other outgoing County ministers, Sarah Omache, (Healthy) prayed that the new governor, Simba Arati, would do tremendous work in pushing the county forward.

Separately, the governor has announced a fresh head count of staff across all county departments.

The exercise , said the County boss, is aimed at weeding out more ghost staff.

The excercise could be done with precision and level of professionalism, he said .

He defended the head count saying there is no witch hunt.

He spoke of plan to slice the workforce to get spare funds to undertake development.

“A large work force means we cannot do development and this pushes us to work on other modalities to spare cash for development,” said

Arati said he will not tire from fighting graft further urging his executives not to engage in the vice.