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Bid to Lock Out Ex-MPs From Poll Race

Details

Published on Saturday, 05 November 2011 03:00

Controversy is brewing in Kitutu Masaba constituency over plans to block two former MPs from running in the forthcoming by-election.

A local voter, backed by area professionals, has written to the Interim Independent Electoral Commission seeking to bar Mr Walter Nyambati and his predecessor, Mr Samson Mwancha Okioma, from contesting the seat.

Mr Samson Manani Araka also wants their respective parties stopped from clearing them for nominations over allegations on Constituency Development Funds cash spent during their terms.

Ghost projects

Mr Araka, in a memorandum issued yesterday in Nakuru, claimed that the former MPs were responsible for "white elephant and ghost projects" that consumed millions of taxpayers' money.

Mr Okioma, who served from 2003 to 2007, was accused of presiding over the construction of a Sh1,506,629 constituency office, which was never completed. On his part, Mr Nyambati whose election was recently nullified, purportedly built a constituency fund office on land belonging to a farmers' cooperative. The by-election is on November 28. Five other people have expressed interest in the seat.