Chuka/Igambang’ombe MP Patrick Munene has said he saved Chuka town, the Tharaka Nithi county economic hub, from degenerating into a huge urban slum due to lack of a sewerage system.
The first-time legislator said during his short stint in office he has successfully lobbied for upgrading of the town’s sewerage infrastructure.
Speaking during disbursement of the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) bursaries in Chuka town Monday, Munene challenged his political distractors to name any tangible development projects they have brought into the constituency rather than wooing the electorate with empty promises on what they would deliver once elected in 2022.
“We have had former MPs but I can say without fear of contradiction that the kind of infrastructural development we’ve done in our local schools over the last three years has not been witnessed before,” he said.
The MP said growing up, it used to hurt him to the core to see children in the constituency studying in dusty, windowless and leaking roofs in the name of classrooms and once elected to parliament, he undertook to provide the children with a conducive learning environment.
He said his development record cuts across all other sectors including construction of government offices for local administrators and the police, besides embarking on rural electrification, irrigation projects, issuance of title deeds and the ongoing construction of a Huduma Centre at the Kathwana county headquarters.
“Once completed, the second Huduma centre in the county after a similar facility in Chuka town, will bring various government services closer to the people,” reiterated the legislator.
On bursaries, Munene said during his formative years of learning, he personally experienced the agonizing pain of lacking school fees, hence his decision to prioritize education in Chuka/Igambang’ombe constituency.
He said his main secret to success is reigning in rogue contractors and using locally constituted committees to oversee government projects to ensure all the provided funds are used for the intended purposes, without ending up in people’s pockets.
By David Mutwiri