For every ward in Kenya
Something in your area
is broken. Who do
you actually call?
Most people complain to whoever is nearest. Usually that person was never in charge of it, so nothing happens. Toguna looks at where the money for a project came from, and tells you which of your six elected leaders has to answer for it.
Free Android app · Every ward in Kenya · The leaders in it are samples for now
The problem
Ask five neighbours who is responsible for the road outside the gate, and you will get five different answers. Every one of them sounds right.
So the complaint goes to whoever is nearest, or loudest. The office it reaches was never in charge of that road, says so, and is telling the truth. Everyone walks away certain that nobody is accountable. Toguna is built to end the guessing.
Two ways in
Whichever side of it you are on
See what is being built near you, what it cost, and who has to answer for it. Then take it to the right person instead of the nearest one.
What you can do You hold office, or want to Show what you have doneOne place for your record, attached to your name — the budget, how far the work got, and your own answer to the people who asked.
What you getIf you live here
Everything happening where you live
Pick your ward, or let the app find it. From there you see the work going on around you, what it is costing, how far it has got, and the name of the person who has to answer for it.
- Every project in your ward, with its budget and what has been spent so far
- Report something that is broken, and back a neighbour's report so it carries weight
- Read what a leader promised, and whether anything came of it
- Take it to the office that is actually responsible, not the nearest one
- Follow a petition and read the official reply, word for word
If you hold office, or want to
Show the receipts, not the rumours
If you hold office, or you are running for one, your record sits in budget papers and WhatsApp groups. Toguna gives it one place, under your name, where the people in your ward can actually see it.
- Publish your manifesto, and link each promise to the project that delivers it
- Log a project with its budget, what has been spent, and the stage it has reached
- Answer a petition in writing, and have your answer stay there under your name
- You are measured on your own job only — a Senator's job is watching how county money is spent, so a Senator gets a watchlist, never a building score
- Claim your office once. It is checked by a person before it goes live
How it works
From where you stand to who answers for it
The core idea
The money decides who answers
Pick a fund and see who it makes answerable. None of this is typed in by hand, so the wrong Senator never ends up attached to the wrong road.
Why it gets your area right
It knows your actual ward
Not the nearest big town. Every one of Kenya's 1,450 wards is in the app with its real boundary, drawn by the IEBC. So when the app reads your location it puts you in the right ward — even where two wards share a name.
And what you write stays yours. Your phone number and your ID cannot be read by another user. The database itself blocks that, not the app, so a broken screen cannot leak them.
Straight talk
The leaders you see in the app right now are made up. Every one of them is named Mfano — Swahili for example — and badged Sample wherever they appear. No real politician is named or scored yet.
You can find your ward, look around and file a report. Signing a petition is switched off until we can check that you are a registered voter, because a petition anyone can sign twice is worth nothing.
Who is building this
Thaiya Waronja
Lead product designer and developer
Toguna is a one-person build: the Android app, the database behind it, the ward boundaries it uses to find you, and this page.