EMBU MCAs DEMAND FLEET MANAGEMENT POLICY FOR COUNTY VEHICLES
The Embu County Executive has been challenged to formulate a Fleet Management Policy and take inventory of all County Government vehicles, plant machinery and equipment to streamline operations.
Runyenjes Central MCA Edwin Kamuti who also chairs the Assembly’s Sectoral Committee on Infrastructure moved a Motion to compel the County Government to produce records of all vehicles, noted that there was no system of managing government vehicles, leaving them battered, stalled and sprawled across the County.
He disclosed that the Motion emanated from the realisation that tens of County Government vehicles were wasting away in different garages across the county; some engaged in private businesses and the lack of servicing schedules or proper fueling registers and detail orders.
The Ward Rep stated that there was need to ensure effective and efficient control, utilisation, safeguarding and management of the vehicles, plant machinery and equipment and the need for transparency and accountability in their procurement, acquisition, fueling and servicing.
Kamuti lamented that frequent breakdowns, lack of inspection and poor maintenance of county equipment stemmed from lack of a central inventory. He also blamed loss of some vehicles to private entities and vandalism of spare parts to lack of a managerial policy for the last decade.
Minority Leader Ngari Mbaka (Mavuria) observed that most county vehicles are grounded due to minor breakdowns, but regretted that due to lack of a mechanical department to carry repairs, the county was losing millions of taxpayers’ money in undelivered services and continual dilapidation of grounded machinery.
Other MCAs who deliberated on the Motion revealed that some county vehicles had disappeared from parking yards while others had been parked at private homes for several years, leading to wanton vandalism. They said the county did not know how many vehicles it owned and their whereabouts.
The leaders gave the County Government a 60-day ultimatum to draft the Fleet Management Policy and forward it to the County Assembly for ratification, with Deputy Speaker Ibrahim Swaleh committing the follow-up of the matter to the County Assembly Committee on Implementation.
The Kirimari MCA asserted that the Executive ought to be held to task on unimplemented Assembly resolutions, affirming that the people’s representatives cannot be turned into cry-babies who only lament and no action is taken.
A factfinding tour by MCAs to various parking lots established that Embu County had more than 100 stalled vehicles, with some needing repairs worth as little as Ksh 3,000.
