Kajiado County Governor Joseph Ole Lenku was forced to spend three nights in a hotel room with his County Executive Committee(CEC) members with a rare aim of trying to reduce county government budget deficits through spending cuts.
Ole Lenku, who is the second governor of Kajiado county, was attending a county meeting in Loitoktok since Monday, December 2, and in a rather unusual turn of events had to share a room with his CEC’s.
The move was however immediately criticized by the public as a not-so genuine gesture.
They could not understand why if the governor was trying to reduce government budget deficits, he did not have the meeting in his office.
Kama ni austerity wangekutana kwa ofisi. Hapa wanasave per diem
— Wanjiru Mwangi (@GNdiritumiriam) December 5, 2019
And they didn't miss the chance to take a pic.
— Thinguri Njau (@ThinguriNjau) December 5, 2019
Lenku has banned County officials retreat and meetings in exotic hotels which cost the county government millions of shillings in allowances annually.
Regular county officers in Kajiado County are said to use fuel guzzlers as their means of transport to meetings in exotic hotels.
This and other expensive trends have seen the expenditure of the county ballooning much to the chagrin of the electorate county administration.
To set an example Lenku, his cabinet and chief officers went into a camping site in Loitoktok for a five-day meeting.
The group travelled by bus and is sharing living space and amenities in addition to cleaning the space.
Ole Lenku says the move has seen them significantly save resources on what would have been an expensive undertaking.