By Habil Onyango
The Coalition of Homa Bay Organizations on Governance Oversight (CHOGO) has written to the Homa Bay County Health CECM, Grace Mercy Osewe, requesting information about the Accident and Emergency facility at Homa Bay Teaching and Referral Hospital.
In the Financial Year 2024/2025, the Office of the Auditor General identified concerns regarding an expenditure of Kshs 95,616,073 incurred for the proposed construction of a multistoried block for accident and emergency, casualty, and outpatient departments. This amount included Kshs 86,535,985 for builders’ works and Kshs 9,080,089 for electrical works.
The County Executive has entered into two contracts: one for builders’ work at a cost of Kshs 229,619,315 and another for electrical works at Kshs 39,039,200.
The project commenced on April 29, 2024, with an expected completion date of April 28, 2025, but the contract was later extended by an additional six months to October 2025.
As of June 30, 2025, Kshs 153,425,990 had been certified for the project. However, a physical inspection in June 2025 indicated that construction had only reached the third-floor slab, with walling, plumbing, electrical works, roofing, plastering, construction of the fourth floor, and other finishing tasks still outstanding.
The project was reported to be 70 per cent complete, raising concerns about potential cost escalations and delays.
In light of these issues, CHOGO requested information under Article 35 of the Constitution of Kenya and the Access to Information Act 2016.
Their letter, dated July 25, 2026, emphasised the need for clarification regarding various aspects of the facility’s planning, budgeting, procurement, financing, implementation, and operational status.
“The request arises from CHOGO’s ongoing public expenditure tracking and social audit exercise, which has uncovered several issues requiring official clarification,” the letter states, signed by Edgar Ochweyo, Chairperson, and Nicholas Omondi, Secretary.
CHOGO describes itself as a county-based civil society coalition committed to promoting transparency, accountability, citizen participation, and prudent management of public resources through evidence-based social accountability initiatives.
In their letter, CHOGO specifically requested access to publicly available planning, budgeting, and implementation documents, highlighting apparent inconsistencies related to the project’s identity, scope, budget allocations, contract values, implementation progress, and commissioning status.
They seek clarification on discrepancies between the approved budget of Ksh 274 million, the amount spent (Ksh 85.1 million), the initial contract sum (Ksh 229.6 million), the revised contract sum (Ksh 335.4 million), and cumulative expenditure (Ksh 145.7 million).
“These figures appear in various planning and implementation documents and need to be reconciled,” the organisation noted.
They are also requesting explanations for why the estimated project cost changed from approximately Ksh 200 million to Ksh 229.6 million and later to Ksh 335.4 million, along with copies of the relevant approvals.
Additionally, CHOGO requested specific page numbers for the project in the County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2023-2027 and in the Annual Development Plan (ADP) for the Financial Year 2022/2023.
They further inquired whether the project scope has changed since its initial inclusion in the CIDP, requesting cabinet or County Executive approval for any such changes.
The organisation also seeks clarification on whether the project forms part of the Governor’s election manifesto and requested annual budget allocations for the project from FY 2022/2023 to FY 2026/2027.
Furthermore, they wanted to know if the infrastructure upgrades at Homa Bay Teaching and Referral Hospital are the same as the construction of the Accident and Emergency Centre.
If different, they requested details including the project title, reference numbers, descriptions, and separate implementation schedules, copies of the original project concept note, project appraisal documents, feasibility studies, needs assessments, or technical justifications that informed the decision to undertake the project.
The letter emphasises the importance of transparency and accountability in the management of public resources and calls for prompt responses to their inquiries.
