NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 29 – The leadership of the County Assembly Forum is threatening to take action on rogue governors who have been mentioned in the confidential report by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission presented to Parliament by the President on Thursday.
Led by its chairman Abdi Nuh, the MCAs lashed out at governors saying they have failed to see the good in the President’s speech and were only reacting to it owing to fears that they could be in the list of people being investigated.
“We expected as the county assemblies of the Republic of Kenya that the Council of Governors would apart from badmouthing the President and saying we don’t want politics in fighting corruption we wanted them to give adequate and urgent steps that they were going to take as the Chief Officers of those County governments. They have not given a solution as yet, not even saying we want to see that report and decide,” said Nuh.
The MCAs said they had written to the Senate requesting to have copies of the speech and the attached documents (confidential report) for them to also discuss and take action if need be.
“The matters mentioned in the President’s speech and in the addendum is not a matter that only concerns the National Government but it also concerns County Governments,” Nuh added.
While noting that the first solution to a problem was acknowledging it, the MCAs said they had alerted their counterparts and by next week the County Assemblies will begin taking action and particularly the respective counties whose governors have been reported to have been engaging in malpractices.
“We don’t just sit in the Assemblies and watch things go wrong, this is a signal to all our colleagues, that we don’t wait for others to say something then we start, we will do our job as assemblies because we don’t support corruption, ” said Abubakar Mohammed, Garissa County Assembly Speaker
They however lamented that although they were keen on taking action, they had been rendered toothless by a ruling in a Bungoma Court which declared sections of the County Governments Act that allow County Assemblies to impeach the CECs and the Chief Officers (Governors) unconstitutional.
“As it stands now County Assemblies have no capacity or framework in the law unless the appeal that we have set rolling succeeds,” said Nuh.
They nevertheless maintained that they will do all they can to ensure corruption was fought further acknowledging that even as MCAs they needed to deal with accusations levelled against them, stating that some could have been enjoined in the report by the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission.
“We want all governors to also take the same action as that of the President and come up with reports to be tabled in the County Assemblies. All the County Assemblies should make fighting corruption a top priority because counties are also facing many issues,” said Johnson Osoi from Kajiado County.
The promised to execute their oversight roles and ensure all those found guilty of corruption malpractices were ‘phased out’.
Chege Mwaura and Millicent Wambui from Nairobi County said the County Assemblies were willing to work with the President further calling on the governors to join hands with them.
Already four Cabinet Secretaries, Felix Koskei (Agriculture), Michael Kamau (Transport), Davies Chirchir (Energy) and Kazungu Kambi (Labour) and one Principal Secretary Nduva Muli (Transport) have heeded to the President directive to step down from office for two moths pending investigations into allegation corruption levelled against them.
They have expressed confidence that they will be vindicated despite most having being linked to various allegations of corruption that are already in the public domain.
Source-capitalfm.co.ke
MCAs Forum to Initiate Action on Governors Named-EACC Report
