Governor Wycliffe Wangamati will not travel outside the country to look for investors, saying it was a waste of resources.
Mr Wangamati said interested investors should travel to his county to look for business instead.
Addressing Mabanga Farmers Training College employees yesterday, the governor said the decision was partly tied to his goal of cutting expenses.
“There is no need of using the taxpayer’s money to travel abroad on a venture that won’t yield any fruits,” Mr Wangamati said. “Instead of looking for them, let them look for us; the previous county administration had several trips abroad but it yielded nothing, I don’t want to go that route.”
He replaced Kenneth Lusaka — now Senate Speaker —as governor of Bungoma.
The governor said related savings would be invested locally in ventures like water drilling, revamping of agriculture, health, education and rehabilitation of roads.
“I will not go to Spain or Germany looking for investors, you won’t see me globetrotting at the expense of taxpayers,” he said. Mr Wangamati has also cut his office expenses by a half, banned meetings outside the county and asked all senior officers to hold meetings in local hotels to stop wastages.
He said doing so would promote the hospitality industry in the county and hence create job opportunities.
He warned workers who are fond of embezzling county funds that they will not be tolerated in his government.
“As I work on cutting wastage, all employees should stick to their mandate, if you are found to have inserted your hand into the public kitty, you will be sacked on the spot.”
He said it would be better to lose the gubernatorial seat in 2022 “rather than accept corrupt individuals in my administration.”
He said he had managed to save Sh100 million in the last 45 days in office after banning foreign trips.
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