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A war of words has erupted between the Nyandarua governor and the county’s senator over the welfare of workers, prompting fears that the days of perennial political conflicts are back.

Last Friday, Governor Moses Kiarie Badilisha issued a hard-hitting press statement against Senator John Methu, accusing him of trying to use unpaid allowances to incite county employees.

Badilisha said he had inherited a huge burden of unpaid allowances from the previous two administrations but added that he had “managed to pay 90 per cent of the historical pending bills”.

Pending allowances

The pending allowances, he said, ballooned during the Covid-19 pandemic when funds meant for frontline workers, mainly in the health sector, were diverted in questionable dealings.

“What we are dealing with are historical pending bills which cannot be cured or paid in one financial cycle, or through political interference and brinkmanship,” Badilisha said Friday at a press briefing in Ol Joro Orok.

He challenged Methu to be a serious defender of devolution, saying “Those charged with the responsibility to protect devolution only bombarded us with comical fairytales and photoshoots that mean nothing to the people”.

Full budget

The governor was reacting to a claim by Methu that sub-county and ward administrators last received their allowances in September last year. The senator vowed to fight for the rights of county employees.

“We commit to use all the necessary avenues to fight for justice for members of staff of the Nyandarua County Executive,” Methu wrote in a post on a social media platform on Thursday.

The county, he said, had received the total equitable share of Sh5.91 billion from the national government for the 2023-24 financial year, with the last tranche of Sh480 million received on July 26, 2024.

“Having received the full budget, who gobbled [up] staff allowances of up to 11 months?” the senator asked.

County petitions

The governor said residents expected Methu to push for the conclusion of the county’s petitions on the Mau Mau Road and the Sasumwa water project that have been pending in the Senate.

“Other counties like Makueni, Kajiado, Turkana, Meru and Taita Taveta are reaping big in terms of own-source revenue because they were allowed to benefit from resources found in them through a push by their senators, while we (Nyandarua) are still waiting for our petitions to be discussed,” the governor lamented.

Governor Kiarie said his administration cared about the welfare of county employees, adding that “one of the critical foundations of my Change Manifesto was, and remains, the welfare of staff that remains the most important cogs for the proper functioning of my government”.

Since he became governor, he said, over 100 casual workers, some of whom had held that status for over 20 years, had been absorbed under permanent terms.

“[The workers] are now enjoying full benefits, bringing to an end a discriminatory work environment of disfranchisement,” he said.

Timely disbursements

The governor accused Methu of voting against the Division of Revenue Bill that sought to increase county allocations and failing to speak for the timely disbursement of funds to counties or advance any meaningful debate for the people of Nyandarua at the national level.

Fierce political conflicts between elected leaders have been common in Nyandarua since the advent of devolution.

The first devolution administration (2013-2017) was dogged by infighting between Governor Daniel Waithaka Mwangi and his deputy Mwangi Kirika, while conflicts between Governor Francis Kimemia and then county assembly Speaker Ndegwa Wahome hurt services for residents from 2017-2022.