A multi-million shilling scam at the heart of the Busia County Government has been laid bare, exposing a shameful plunder of public funds meant to sustain the once-thriving Busia County Monthly Newspaper. Over KSh 59 million was siphoned off in a secretive looting spree involving senior officials, ultimately killing the publication and enriching a few well-connected individuals.
According to confidential sources and investigations by The Weekly Vision, the scheme was orchestrated in the final year of former Governor Sospeter Ojaamong’s administration. Top officials from the County’s ICT Department allegedly conspired with the Chief of Protocol to illegally transfer funds from the ICT account to the Protocol office. The money vanished into thin air, used, it is claimed, to line their own pockets.
“The money was meant to fund our next print run,” said Michael Oongo, the former Managing Editor of the now-defunct publication. “Instead, it was diverted in the dead of night. We never made it to the press, and just like that, the newspaper died.”
What followed was an ostentatious spending spree. One man is reported to have purchased land on the outskirts of Busia town and a brand-new Toyota Wish, while another allegedly acquired nearly 100 acres near Malaba and rolled around in a brand-new Toyota Prado, all funded, it appears, by stolen public cash.
Other accomplices are said to have followed suit, snapping up cars, land, and property, some of which is now being rented out for personal gain. Shockingly, despite the paper’s collapse, budgetary allocations have continued to be funnelled into the same accounts to date, with no audits or accountability.
In the aftermath, the situation under the current Governor, Dr Paul Otuoma, is equally troubling. According to insiders, Oscar Obonyo, the Director of Communications in the Governor’s office, has been denied any direct funding to run his department. The team is forced to rely on meagre petty cash for operations.
Even basic tools like microphones and cameras, last purchased during Ojaamong’s tenure, are broken, with no replacements in sight. Equipment needed for day-to-day communications and county functions has all but disintegrated.
Worse still, insiders claim Otuoma bypasses his own communications team, instead relying on an outsider based in Nairobi, a close relative from his Ebu-Nandi village in Funyula. This Nairobi-based man reportedly pockets hundreds of thousands of shillings monthly in consultancy fees, yet does little, if anything, to advance the county’s ICT efforts.
What began as a thriving platform for informing and engaging Busia residents has now been reduced to whispers of corruption, nepotism, and neglect. The legacy of the newspaper, built on transparency and public service, has been destroyed, first by theft, now by silence.
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