Nyamira County Assembly Speaker, Henry Okero has been suspended indefinitely from presiding over the Assembly business.
The motion of suspending the Assembly Speaker was moved without prior notice on Tuesday morning in the assembly.
When the speaker refused to give the mover of the suspension motion a chance to speak and insisted to adjourn the morning session in the assembly, chaos erupted in the house forcing the speaker to be whisked out of the assembly by security personnel leaving a member of the speaker’s panel Julius Matwere, MCA for Bonyamatuta Ward to continue presiding over the house proceedings.
“I took over as the interim Speaker because the deputy speaker was not within the assembly precincts at that time. We moved for the indefinite suspension of the Assembly Speaker and as I speak, Henry Okero stands suspended indefinitely,” MCA Matwere stated.
“Some of the reasons for the speaker’s suspension included failure of the speaker to give to the County Assembly Service Board (CASB) an opportunity to table a report on its operations for the past two consecutive years. He is thus denying the assembly crucial information on the operations of the CASB required by law thus contravening section 36 (1) of the County Assembly Service Board Act, 2017,” the Bonyamatuta MCA explained.
He further revealed that the County Assembly Members under the leadership of the suspended speaker has suffered continued illegal stay in office by two board members; Joel Ombongi and Lameck Sikweya even after being recalled by their political parties/coalitions.
The legislature revealed that the speaker has threatened the independence of the Assembly by entertaining fake court/tribunal orders and usurping the functions of the house business committee thereby not giving them opportunity to plan, prioritise and approve County Assembly notice papers.
“We appointed an eleven-member ad hoc committee to investigate these accusations to ascertain whether they are true hence declare the speaker unfit to hold public office and membership of the two MCAs at the CASB has been withdrawn henceforth,” MCA Matwere confirmed.
The County assembly of Nyamira has been marred with numerous wrangles and conflicts with the most recent one last month of attempts to impeach Governor Amos Nyaribo.
By Deborah Bochere
