Drama as Rabai residents fight over County budget allocation

There was drama at the Shikaadabu Social Hall in Rabaisurutini Ward, Rabai sub-county in Kilifi County, when residents who gathered to discuss the county budget allocation for the ward engaged in chaos and near-fights. 

Two camps emerged during the meeting, with one in support of the Sh 228 million budget while the other discredited it, saying that what was adopted was not essential  to the needs of the people. 

The opposing group led by Said Charo, Tobias Ngao and Rashid Saburi said that they had petitioned the Kilifi County Assembly to take the budget back to the people for harmonization to ensure equity in resource allocation. 

“We have given the County Assembly of Kilifi seven days to deliberate the petition, failure to which we shall move to court because the budget as approved doesn’t reflect the needs of the people with several crucial dockets like health and education getting very little allocation,” said Charo. 

Saburi said that the meeting was called in good faith but he accused the area Member of County Assembly (MCA) Mae Mwadena of sending his supporters to disrupt the meeting. 

“The meeting was about discussing the budget shortfalls and unfair distribution of projects but the MCA has sent his supporters to cause chaos since he knows that the unequal sharing of the Sh. 228 million projects across four sub-locations in Rabai Kisurutini ward,” he said. 

Some of the residents who defended the MCA accused the conveners of the meeting of perpetuating politics after Mwadena declared that he will vie for the Rabai constituency seat to challenge the current MP Kenga Mupe. 

Florence Lwambi, Mohamed Simba and Mulki Hassan claimed that those opposing the projects were playing politics with the lives of ward residents and that they never take part in county budget public participation sessions in the ward. 

“What we are witnessing today is very unfortunate because there are a few people allied to an elected politician in this area who are trying to use county projects to malign the good name of our MCA Mae Mwadena, and we won’t allow that to happen,” said Simba. 

Mulki said, “We never see these people during public participation forums to plan projects for our ward, but they are very quick to question the approved projects and even try to stall them.”