Seven years, it is said, is about how long it takes to begin to regret life-changing decisions. However, almost two years, from the last polls, there are signs that Nyeri Town voters are certainly suffering from an ‘itch’ and questioning the choice they made in August 2022.
The constituency has nothing much but lamentations about their current MP Dancun Mathenge Maina, alias DMM, whose voting to office via the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) continues to leave a bitter taste in their mouths.
Riding on the 2022 UDA wave in Mt Kenya, Mathenge attained 41,111 votes to clinch the seat from rival Jubilee Party candidate at that time, Ngunjiri Wambugu, who garnered 11,808 votes.
Yet, recent complaints from voters in the constituency indicate things are not working how they expected with DMM’s leadership, especially on education and bursary distribution to needy students, across the constituency’s five wards of Rware, Rirungu, Kiganjo, Kamakwa, and Gaitu.
”He lied that he had taken a kid to Rware High School only for the guardian and pastor to come out and deny that DMM had any role in taking the kids to school. He told our parents that bursary will be in school in December, January, February and we are heading to March. He keeps promising of a Wednesday yenye haifiki,” Kamau Wacuru, a parent from Rware Ward tells Kenyan Report.
Constituents say, on bursary distribution, when pressed to explain how the NGCDF bursary was utilized in his first financial year, their MP has no consistent story.
”On one point he claims he gave 11,000 students on the other hand he claims he awarded 13,000 students. I just hope the 2,000 variance was not money stolen. There are schools who claim that on paper they were told 300 students have been awarded bursary and only bursary for 100 students went to school,” Wacuru adds, saying there is a deep collusion between bursars across the constituency and the Nyeri Town CDF office to inflate the number of ghost students.
In the Uhuru Kenyatta administration, the national government allocated Ksh 35M for bursaries, while President Ruto has raised the allocation to Ksh 45M. However, many needy Nyeri Town students did not get bursaries and those lucky were awarded less money.
