The Charter
The Tachoni Charter sets out what this community is asking for, in writing, with dates attached. It is put to everyone who seeks to represent Bungoma County — and their answers are published here, unedited.
Why it exists
The Tachoni have been mobilised before. In 2017 and again in 2022 the community was courted, delivered, and afterwards found that what had been promised was not what arrived. Our own elders have said so publicly: the community backed a candidate and received two cabinet positions against a much longer list of commitments.
The problem was never the backing. The problem was that nothing was written down, so there was nothing to hold anyone to.
This Charter is the correction. It is a list of specific, checkable asks. Candidates are invited to respond to each one in writing. Their responses are published here in full, whatever they say, and afterwards this page becomes the record against which delivery is measured.
How it is made
- Submissions. Any Tachoni may submit an ask, from any ward, through this site, at a clan gathering, or by phone. Every submission is recorded with the ward it came from.
- Drafting. Submissions are grouped by theme and drafted into specific asks — an ask that cannot be checked later is rewritten until it can be.
- Ratification. The draft is put to an open convention. Clan elders and ward representatives adopt, amend or reject each item.
- Presentation. The adopted Charter goes to every declared candidate for Governor of Bungoma, with the same covering letter and the same deadline.
- Publication. Every response is published on this page as received. So is every non-response.
The asks — Draft 1
Draft 1 is compiled from grievances the community has already stated publicly, through its elders and its representatives. It is open for submissions and has not yet been ratified. Numbering is provisional.
CH-01 · Webuye Pan Paper
The ask: a published, dated plan for the resumption of production at the Webuye mill, and settlement in full of the arrears owed to former employees.
Why: the mill is the reason Webuye exists as a town. It collapsed in 2009, reopened under new ownership in 2016, and has been idle again. Former employees have gone unpaid for up to a decade. A commitment to resume operations, and to settle those arrears, was given publicly in December 2025.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: a written statement of what the county government can and will do, with dates, and a quarterly public report on progress.
CH-02 · The Webuye milk processing plant
The ask: completion and commissioning of the stalled milk processing plant at Webuye.
Why: it sits in the middle of the Tachoni dairy belt and it is unfinished. Farmers are selling to middlemen at the gate for want of a processor.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: a completion date, a budget line, and the governance arrangement for who will run it.
CH-03 · The Chetambe memorial
The ask: construction of the promised memorial at Chetambe Hill on the twenty acres already identified, to those killed in the 1895 siege.
Why: it has been promised by successive governments, most recently in December 2025, and it has not been built. It is the single most significant site in this community’s history and it is unmarked.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: securing the land, a construction timetable, and a role for Tachoni elders in how the site is interpreted and who is named on it.
CH-04 · Health services
The ask: a published service standard for the health facilities serving Webuye East and Webuye West — staffing, drug availability, diagnostic equipment and referral — and quarterly reporting against it.
Why: Parliament’s own Budget Office published Kenya’s first county fiscal performance scorecard on 7 August 2026. Bungoma ranked ninth from the bottom. That is not a grievance this community invented; it is the assessment of the National Assembly’s own analysts.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: the standard, the reporting, and a named officer answerable for it.
CH-05 · Water and roads in the Tachoni wards
The ask: a ward-by-ward schedule of water and road works for Mihuu, Ndivisi, Maraka, Misikhu, Sitikho, Matulo and Bokoli, with budgets and completion dates.
Why: because “development for all” is not a plan, and a schedule can be checked.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: the schedule, published, before the election rather than after it.
CH-06 · The other stalled industries
The ask: a stated county position on Nzoia Sugar, the Kitinda dairy and the Malakisi cotton ginnery.
Why: Tachoni elders have named these three repeatedly. Between them they were the wage economy of this region.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: for each, a stated position — revive, repurpose or wind up — and the reasoning. An honest “no” is more useful to this community than another promise.
CH-07 · Culture as a devolved function
The ask: a dedicated county budget line for cultural heritage, including the annual Tachoni Cultural Festival and the recording of elders across all communities in Bungoma.
Why: culture is a devolved function. It is funded as though it were an afterthought.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: an amount, a mechanism, and application on equal terms to every community in the county.
CH-08 · Being counted
The ask: county support for accurate sub-group enumeration in the 2029 census — public information, enumerator briefing, and cooperation with community registers.
Why: 118,363 Tachoni were recorded in 2009 and 85,597 in 2019, while 3.9 million people recorded themselves only as “Luhya, so stated”. Communities that are not counted are not planned for.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: a public statement supporting accurate enumeration for every community in Bungoma, and practical county cooperation with KNBS in 2029.
CH-09 · Representation, published
The ask: publication of county appointments by community, annually, as a matter of routine.
Why: this community’s complaint after two election cycles was that it could not verify what it had been given. Published figures end that argument permanently, in either direction.
What we ask a candidate to commit to: annual publication. Not a quota — a number, in public, that anyone can check.
What this Charter is not
It is not an endorsement, and it does not become one. The Tachoni Heritage & Development Trust is a non-partisan body and does not support or oppose any candidate or party. It gathers the community’s asks, puts them to everyone equally, and publishes what comes back.
What the community’s elders and its clans choose to do with those answers is entirely a matter for them.
Status
Draft 1 · September 2026. Open for submissions. Ratification convention to be convened. Presentation to candidates to follow ratification.
