Orengo Using His Brother To Loot From County Coffers

Siaya Governor James Orengo is back on the spotlight over claims that his younger brother Apollo Orengo has taken over powers in the County’s procurement department and is now calling shots in the award of multi-million tenders.

Orengo has donated powers to Apollo to allocate multi-million tenders to select contractors for heavy kickbacks, with officers at the procurement department being forced to directly answer to him.

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Apollo was spotted at a luxurious Hotel along Kakamega road in Kisumu on Friday where he met with a section of contractors and Siaya procurement officials and plotted to apportion the available tenders worth Ksh 1 billion.

The select contractors have been advised on the lucrative areas to apply and have been assured of prompt payment and as such they must also ready to pay back their interests in form of kickbacks.

Kenyan Bulletin also learnt that the officials agreed on how to allocate the contracts to select contractors even before the tenders are advertised, which is in complete disregard to the procurement regulations.

Apollo has become so powerful that the countystaff, including the former Government spokesperson Cyrus Oguna, a career military man who is currently serving as Orengo’s Chief of Staff have exhibited uncontrolled fear for him to “protect their jobs.”

He is enjoying sweeping powers at the County Head Quarter’s where hes’s only answerable to James Orengo, even the deputy Governor William Oduol fears him.

But Oduol is equally corrupt and has uncontrolled appetite for available job opportunities and has been accused of conflict of interest in his recent moves.

He is also Oduol fighting for his space in the tender circles in a bid to advance corruption at the tainted County as a section of staff pleads with the two top leaders to desist from interfering with the tender process.

During a recent public meeting in Rarieda constituency where Orengo graced the home coming party for a local MCA, the governor downplayed issues of favouritism in his administration and urged contractors to apply for the available jobs as lied that the contracts would be awarded fairly.

His brother, Apollo, who is calling shots at the backroom also distanced himself from the accusations of interfering with the procurement processes at the county.

“I have nothing to do with the said procurement process that is going on. Let those making such allegations table evidence of my involvement,” Apollo said.
Top procurement officials who were privy to his meeting in Kisumu have threatened to table the evidence if he does not desist from usurping their powers.

Corruption and blatant looting has been the culture of Siaya County. Upon taking over in September 2022, Mr. Orengo acknowledged reports of dubious transactions by senior county officials in the former government just days to the August 9 General Election.The new governor revealed that senior officers in the former administration of Cornel Rasanga withdrew cash amounting to around Ksh.400 million within less than two weeks to the polls.

It was also reported that some staff paid themselves huge sums while ignoring a moratorium stopping payments of allowances and pending bills.

“The cash was transferred between July 1 and July 13… A closer look at the documents also revealed that the Siaya County executive paid a total of Sh11,254,800 to four individuals – Mr Silvester Douglas Ogolla, Mr Kevin Ochieng Masawa, Mr Anthony Odiwuor Omollo and Mr Muga Erick Omollo – believed to be clerks of various committees in the assembly,” the Nation quoted in the exposé.

All the payments were made on July 4, whereby three clerks received up to five payments in one day, ranging between Ksh.650,000 and Ksh.716,000.

Governor Orengo told the press that he was aware of the suspicious activity captured in the report and that the information followed a forensic audit of Siaya’s records commissioned by his government.