Political leaders in Nyandarua County have accused the County Assembly of engaging in a witch hunt over the pending impeachment motion against Public Administration and ICT Executive Kariuki Mbataru.
The motion seeking the removal of the Executive from office was moved by Kipipiri MCA Paul Ngeche two weeks ago.
In the motion that was supported by 23 MCAs, and opposed by nine, Eng. Mbataru is accused of among other things, abuse of office, illegal employment of persons in public office and unilaterally establishing decentralised units in the county.
However political leaders led by former Rurii MCA and political activist Mr. Wahome Kamoche accused the MCAs of a witch-hunt and allegedly trying to destabilize Governor Francis Kimemia’s administration by unfairly targeting his executives.
Mr. Kamoche urged the MCAs to focus on their duty of oversighting the executive and stop engaging in witchhunts.
“We know the County Assembly has a mandate to oversight but then they should not use it to sabotage the executive. They should focus on passage of Bills and legislation of laws which is paramount,” he said.
He said that the issues brought against the executive that were tabled at the Assembly were personal issues between him and some individuals from the county who had been denied tenders.
“We cannot take the executive hostage leaving electorate to suffer due to delayed project execution and barring him and the county to create jobs for our youth,” added the activist noting that MCAs had a history of blackmailing governors by coming up with conditions to pass Bills, vet county officials among others.
A special committee appointed by the Assembly last week to investigate the embattled executive adjourned its sittings on Wednesday.
Eng. Mbataru has however accused the committee of not giving him enough time to prepare his defense saying that he had no faith in the MCA Gathure Wambui chaired committee.
He claimed the committee had already shown bias in the way it was conducting the exercise.
“Failure to provide me with sufficient details of the allegations and the evidence the committee intends to rely upon violates Article 25, 47 and 50 of the Constitution. The committee appears to have a predetermined verdict,” said Mbataru.
He said the impeachment motion against him contravened the law and the Articles of the Constitution. He said that no evidence was adduced to support the allegations.
“The process violated fair administrative action under Article 47 as it was unlawful, unreasonable, and procedurally unfair,” said the executive.
He complained of being denied the opportunity to attend the proceedings when witnesses testified in the impeachment process.
By Jesse Mwitwa
