{"id":28,"date":"2017-03-09T23:23:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T23:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politics.mulembenation.co.ke\/2017\/03\/09\/lusaka-failed-attempt-at-reviving-kitinda-dairies-and-creameries\/"},"modified":"2022-04-11T09:45:20","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T09:45:20","slug":"lusaka-failed-attempt-at-reviving-kitinda-dairies-and-creameries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/lusaka-failed-attempt-at-reviving-kitinda-dairies-and-creameries\/","title":{"rendered":"Devolution chronicles: Lusaka’s failed attempt at reviving Kitinda Dairies and Creameries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Candidate Lusaka must have been glad with his team for picking reviving Kitinda Dairies and Creameries as a campaign promise. If only….<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\\’ll be hard pressed to find a Governor (then aspiring) whose announcement to seek elective office excited the people as that of a former District Officer who rose the ranks of civil service to become permanent secretary in the Ministry of Livestock & Fisheries. Devolution was new, as voters we knew little about what it meant or what a governor in Kenya does<\/a>, but he looked good and sounded good, fit enough for the honor of becoming the first governor of Bungoma county<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The promise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not only did Kenneth Makelo Lusaka<\/a> pull the stops a grand entry announcing his candidature to Bungoma town<\/a> residents, unlike the other candidates he had a plausible plan. In truth, it was a vaguely articulated manifesto whose only merit rested on Lusaka\\’s credentials in government. The development plan, among other initiatives, promised to revive our much beloved Kitinda Dairies and Creameries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a feeling it must have been then that on that day as candidate Ken Lusaka and his entourage in a show of might found their way into Bungoma<\/a> town, his dancing mob of supporters in tow, they passed by Kitinda Dairies and Creameries which lies at the edge of Bungoma central business district just off Bungoma- Mumias road<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he drove by at snail pace, waving to jubilant supporters, candidate Lusaka must have silently patted himself on the back for the genius of his pick. Kitinda Dairies and Creameries, then a derelict milk processor, is an institution laden with symbolism. Unlocking its closed doors to receive raw milk from small scale farmers would herald a new dawn for the Mulembe people of Bungoma. Standing there in the ruins of its shame, it reminded a proud people of a proud past where milk flowed, sugarcane farming paid and Webuye Pan Paper mills<\/a> roared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riding into town urged on by the support of heavyweights of Bungoma politics – the likes of honorable Musikari Kombo<\/a>, Eugene Wamalawa<\/a> and Wakoli Bifwoli<\/a> – and fronting a new party: New Ford Kenya; with a clean not-a-politician-before-but-a technocrat, my brothers in Bungoma must have looked at Lusaka and felt: “If this is devolution, then lets do this…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reviving Kitinda Dairies and Creameries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But it’s never that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, for a while a governor can easily do with slapping on a fresh coat of paint, clearing of bushes the complete shebang with a colorful launch, but there are those small details that make the difference. The difference between fire as fuel and fire as a destroyer. For Kitinda Dairies and Creameries, that small thing was a talented, conniving but veracious blogger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to the tireless efforts of one, the late, Grace Namuleyi Wasike<\/a>, one morning late into the 1st Lusaka administration, not so flattering images of what netizens termed as a travesty at worst, a half heartedly done job at best surfaced online throwing into serious doubts Governor Lusaka’s claims of revival of Kitinda Dairies and Creameries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The images left little to imagination if the Ken Lusaka led county government had done Kitinda Dairies and Creameries any justice. To cut the long story short, let’s just say that the images were the beginning of the end for Lusaka, and the end of the beginning for his successor, Hon. Wycliffe Wangamati<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Candidate Lusaka must have been glad with his team for picking reviving Kitinda Dairies and Creameries as a campaign promise. If only…. You\\’ll be hard pressed to find a Governor (then aspiring) whose announcement to seek elective office excited the people as that of a former District Officer who rose the ranks of civil service … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,6,11],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-bungoma","tag-ken-lusaka","tag-kitinda-dairy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12946,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/12946"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mulembenation.co.ke\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}