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MALITI: Incompetent Ondieki should quit his key job

By TOM MALITI April 28th, 2014 2 min read

Last week was a difficult one for Transport, Roads and Public Works County Executive Evans Ondieki.

According to a report in The Star, Ondieki made the astounding revelation to a committee of the County Assembly that he did not know how far the roads repair programme had progressed.

He is reported to have told the committee he had no information about what was happening to two-thirds of the program.

He said he knew the county had advertised tenders covering 97 roads, but he had no information on 63 of them.

Mr Ondieki said he had asked his juniors for an update and got no response. 

There is no doubt that the roads department is rotten. For example, the time it took to build the 40-kilometre plus Thika Superhighway was the same time it took the old City Council of Nairobi to construct Jabavu Lane.

This is about a kilometre of road between Jabavu Road and Argwings Kodhek Road.

But when Mr Ondieki told the team he cannot update them what are the rest of us supposed to do?

As if his presentation on the roads programme was not indictment enough of his performance, there was more. He may not have been prepared to present the County Assembly committee with information, but he was prepared for political battle.

When he appeared before the committee Tuesday last week, he had supporters outside holding posters with hand-written slogans in favour of the proposed new bus system.

Why was a member of the County Executive engaging in “show of strength” in politics? Aren’t members of the County Executive supposed to show their strength by getting on with the job and leave the my-crowd-is-bigger-than-your-crowd contest to their boss, the governor?

If he is overwhelmed by his portfolio, he should do the honourable thing.
tom.maliti@live.com