Five Bomet County legislators walked out of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s function after they were apparently being denied a chance to address the crowd.
Among those who walked out were Ronald Tonui (Bomet Central), Brighton Yegon (Konoin), Beatrice Kones (Bomet East), Gideon Koskei (Chepalungu) and nominated Senator Alice Milgo.
The legislators had gone to receive Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto at the Bomet University College grounds but were not allowed to speak during the opening of the tuition block.
President Kenyatta and DP Ruto had come from a another function at Sotik KCC where they commissioned the Milk processing machine at the plant and were in Bomet to open the inaugural Lake Region Economic Bloc conference.
According to Senator Christopher Langat and woman representative Joyce Korir accused governor Joyce Laboso of failing to give them a chance to speak.
They later went ahead and addressed residents at the Bomet Stadium before leading a procession in the streets saying Laboso had undermined them.
In his speech Tonui said, “Our people are faced with many challenges… We have many problems bedeviling our people which we hoped our leaders would help us speak about, but sadly, we were not given the chance.”
Langat said the move to deny them a chance to speak had blocked them from airing their grievances and development needs of locals from all the five constituencies. Tonui said top on their list was the slow pace of construction at Bomet University and “irregularities” in employment.
The MP said legislators are not happy with a contractor on site, saying he had taken a lot of time and there was little work to show for it “despite receiving over Sh500 million”.
“By now, five buildings are supposed to have been completed, but one is complete and the President was called in to open it. What a shame,” Tonui said.
He said the tuition and administration blocs, hostels, library and multipurpose hall were supposed to be completed.
He said the contractor should be stopped and a new one brought to finish the work.
Tonui said the skills of the contractor were questionable. “The contractor is a politician who should be stopped due to lack of capacity,” he said.