Bomet,
Saturday, 16 March, 2024
McCreadie Andias
Activities in Bomet Town were brought ti a standstill on Saturday afternoon as residents took to the streets and stormed Governor Hillary Barchok’s office demanding his resignation over poor Management of County resources.
This comes moment after the residents had booed and Heckled the Governor at Presidenti William Ruto’s watch during a road adress.
The head of State who was in Bomet for a development tour came to the rescue of the governor urging the residents to maintain calm rather wait for 2027 elections to chose new leaders if they were dissatisfied with their current leadership.
“Do not bring chaos into my meeting” President William Ruto told the residents.
The chaos had erupted from Wednesday morning where the residents staged demonstrations in Bomet town.
The angry residents lit bonfires along the Bomet Highway rendering the busy stretch which connects Bomet to Kericho and Nakuru Counties impassable.
In their protests, the residents accused the governor of misappropriation of county funds, thus demanding his immediate ouster from office.
Police officers who were on high alert were forced to intervene and restrain the rowdy mob who threatened to storm Barchok’s office.
The officers were forced to lob teargas to disperse the protestors.During the protests, police managed to arrest one person who is alleged to have been in possession of a knife at the President’s meeting.
While expressing their fury, the residents vowed not to back down until they received an explanation of how County funds allocated for specific stalled projects were spent.
In November last year, Governor Barchok appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts Committee chaired by Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang’ to explain the County’s pending bills that had allegedly been inflated by Ksh204 million.
The two-term governor was also tasked to explain why several projects worth Ksh1 billion had stalled.
Barchok however, attributed the figures to false claims and manufactured documents, noting that he was in the process of verifying the allegations.
Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her report disclosed that the County had stated its pending bills amounted to Ksh842.39 million yet in reality, the figures showed Ksh637.43 million, thus creating a variance of Ksh204 million.