Kihika outlines new infrastructure push for Nakuru despite budget hurdle
By Nancy Marende, September 18, 2025Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika has met with Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) to deliberate on infrastructure priorities for the current financial year, with a special focus on access roads and street lighting.
In a statement on Thursday, September 18, 2025, Kihika revealed that the meeting was centred on effective project implementation to ensure improved service delivery across all wards.
Governor Kihika emphasised the need for efficiency in the use of available resources to maximise impact despite budgetary and weather-related challenges.
“We discussed how to improve our roads despite the challenges of heavy rainfall and how to maximise output within available resources through efficiency,” she said.
The governor noted that the planned improvements will ease farmers’ access to markets, enhance business operations in safer, well-lit towns, and deliver tangible development across the county.
Stalled County projects
The meeting comes a few weeks after Kihika found herself in a tight spot when she was grilled by the Senate Public Accounts Committee over alleged financial misappropriation and stalled county projects, among them a Ksh1 million toilet that has remained incomplete for three years.
Appearing before the committee on September 3, 2025, she was set to task over alleged misuse of billions of shillings, including stalled projects worth Ksh7.8 billion.
The projects had been flagged by the Auditor General, who said that the county failed to provide documentation or progress reports.
The county could not explain why several projects, including a stalled market toilet worth just Ksh1 million, have dragged on for three years.
“What happened to this toilet, just worth Ksh1 million, that has been stalled since 2019?” asked Moses Kajwang’, Senate PAC chair.
“I don’t want to answer in a way that I will mislead the Senate,” responded Governor Kihika.
Other stalled projects include ECD toilets, with the committee questioning how the pupils were surviving under the circumstances.
“What happened to these ECD toilets that have been stalled for years? So, are the pupils using bushes to relieve themselves?” posed Taita Taveta Senator Johnes Mwaruma
“We will do a report with more details, but I wanted to build ECD toilets because they were sharing with older pupils,” Kihika explained.
The Governor also struggled to explain why the county bypassed its attorney and hired private law firms without approval.
“They have a county attorney, but they went ahead illegally to hire private law firms. They are yet to provide us with documents,” noted the auditor.
Kihika failed to justify payments of over Ksh22 million to private lawyers without proof of service.
“Where is the attorney to answer this? I don’t understand why he isn’t here,” Kihika remarked.
The Senate committee called on EACC to step in and investigate how the payments were made to private legal firms without documentation, and to ensure those behind the irregularities are held accountable.