Nandi Governor under fire over Ksh621m incomplete dairy project

The Nandi County Government is facing mounting scrutiny over what has been termed one of the most egregious cases of public sector waste in the region’s agribusiness sector, following revelations that the Nandi Dairy Cooperative Union creamery in Kabiyet has consumed Ksh621 million in public funds yet remains incomplete, dysfunctional and non-operational eight years after inception.

The explosive disclosure, made by Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei recently, has ignited fresh debate over governance, value for money and financial stewardship in county-led commercial ventures, particularly those purportedly designed to empower farmers.

According to the Senator, the stalled Kabiyet dairy project is not only unfinished but has already absorbed funds approaching Ksh1 billion, despite the fact that a fully functional milk creamery can be established at a cost of approximately Ksh250 million.

The glaring disparity, he argued, raises fundamental questions about procurement integrity, project management and whether public funds were deliberately misapplied.

“This is not just a delayed project; it is a monument to fiscal recklessness and possible malfeasance,” Senator Cherargei said, accusing the Governor of Nandi County of presiding over what he termed a “systematic plunder” of resources meant to support dairy farmers.

The dairy sector is the backbone of Nandi’s rural economy, supporting tens of thousands of households.

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The Kabiyet creamery was conceived as a transformative investment to stabilise milk prices, enhance value addition and reduce farmers’ dependence on private processors. Instead, eight years later, farmers have nothing to show for it but an idle structure and unanswered questions.

Even more troubling, Senator Cherargei noted, is the absence of a publicly available feasibility study outlining the plant’s operational model, processing capacity, market access strategy or financial sustainability.

In any credible business environment, such an omission would be unthinkable. In public finance, it is indefensible.

“A project of this magnitude cannot be run on guesswork. The lack of a feasibility study suggests either gross incompetence or a deliberate attempt to avoid scrutiny,” the Senator said.

The Governor’s administration has yet to provide a detailed breakdown of how the Sh621 million was spent, fuelling suspicions that procurement processes may have been manipulated and contracts inflated.

For a county grappling with underfunded health facilities, struggling ECDE centres and poor rural infrastructure, the opportunity cost of such waste is staggering.

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Analysts say the Kabiyet project exemplifies a broader governance failure in devolved commercial investments, where politically driven announcements replace sound business planning, and where accountability mechanisms are either weak or deliberately ignored.

“What we are witnessing is not development; it is performative politics funded by taxpayers,” said a Nairobi-based agribusiness economist. “If a private company wasted this amount of capital without delivering an operational asset, directors would be in court.”

Senator Cherargei has called for immediate investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Auditor-General and Parliament, warning that continued silence from the county leadership will only deepen public mistrust.

For Nandi’s dairy farmers, the stalled creamery is a painful reminder of promises broken and livelihoods undermined.

For the Governor, it is a growing political and moral indictment—one that underscores the high cost of misgovernance in sectors where efficiency and trust are paramount.

As pressure mounts, the Kabiyet dairy project now stands as a stark symbol of what happens when public office is divorced from accountability—and when development is reduced to a conduit for unchecked expenditure rather than measurable impact.

By David Kipkorir

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