The  Luuya primary ECD classroom image on Thursday…Photo/IP

LUUYA/Burangasi , Kenya (IP)

Senate Majority whip and Bungoma Senator David Wakoli said on Thursday that he will escalate the Bungoma County ECDE saga to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).

The Senator who was accompanied by the Luuya Beale ward MCA Edwin Wekesa Opwora was questioning how a single contractor was awarded four ECDE classroom projects consecutively in Luuya Bwake Ward — and failed to complete even one over four years.

“Wakoli will not just be complaining,” the senator said, arguing that the pattern raises red flags of procurement abuse and impunity. “How does one person get four contracts, year after year, and deliver zero classrooms? That is not incompetence. That is a system problem.”

Wakoli spoke after touring ECDE classes at Luuya Primary School in Kabuchai Constituency, where young learners study in condemned, unsafe structures without desks, toilets, a staffroom, a playground or basic learning materials.

Classrooms meant to nurture early literacy, he said, instead teach children “how to dodge danger.”

According to Wakoli, the County Government launched an ECDE classroom project at the school in the 2023/2024 financial year, but the contractor abandoned the site unfinished.

Despite county officials reportedly knowing the contractor’s whereabouts, the project remains stalled.

The same contractor was later awarded three additional ECDE classrooms in the same ward, bringing the total to four — none of which has been started since 2023.

Even the county’s much-publicized Uji Program has never reached the school, leaving nutrition promises as theoretical as the unfinished buildings.

Wakoli linked the failure to a wider betrayal of public commitments, recalling Governor Kenneth Lusaka’s pledge during his swearing-in at Kibabii University grounds to prioritize local contractors so grassroots communities could create jobs and earn a living.

“Local empowerment was the promise,” Wakoli said. “What we see instead is serial contracting, abandoned sites and children learning in danger.”

From Luuya, the senator proceeded to Burangasi Vocational Training Center in South Bukusu Ward, Bumula Constituency, where he found a different institution suffering from the same disease: neglect.

Instructors there have reportedly worked more than three years without salaries, while delayed capitation has crippled operations.

Shortages of instructors, workshops, classrooms, tools and equipment have forced learners to rely on improvisation.

“Vocational training is meant to empower our youth with skills and dignity,” Wakoli said. “Instead, we are frustrating learners and exploiting instructors who have sacrificed years without pay.”

He blamed the Bungoma County Government for what he described as systemic failure, emphasizing that service delivery is a constitutional duty, not a charitable favor delivered at convenience.

Wakoli said he will formally engage the EACC and other oversight bodies, adding that devolution was designed to bring services closer to the people — not abandoned projects, unpaid teachers and permanent excuses.