NAIROBI, KENYA: Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) disrupted a meeting called by their umbrella body, the County Assembly Forum (CAF) Executive, expressing their anger and frustration over the manner in which the body had responded to their welfare issues.
MCAs paralysed the meeting at Bomas of Kenya, accusing CAF of incompetence.
They further said it was a mistake to have given the mandate to speakers, who are not popularly elected, to champion their welfare issues.
They ousted the office bearers at the stormy meeting, before walking out in protest.
Trouble began after the county representatives demanded that CAF first tables a report on the welfare and other issues that they had tasked it to present to President Uhuru Kenyatta to address, including car grants, mortgages and mileage for nominated representatives before they could agree to a meeting.
Nandi County MCA Martin Douglas accused the CAF leadership of failing to articulate the issues effectively to the Government.
"CAF Executive has failed us. Since we gave them the mandate, nothing has happened. We have realised that we made a mistake when we said the speakers should head the forum, but we have now revoked that and the leadership will be solely the MCAs," said Mr Douglas.
CAF LEADERSHIP
The ward representatives maintained they would not hear anything from CAF leadership if they did not have answers to their plight.
Instead, they ousted the CAF leadership, saying that they will elect nine interim office bearers from among the representatives of the 47 county assemblies.
Douglas charged that the CAF leadership lacked seriousness and sometimes failed to deliberate on issues that require urgent solution.
CAF Secretary Albert Kochei was forced to cut short his speech and adjourn the meeting after being jeered.
"We have adjourned this meeting because it's now evident that it's untenable. The meeting is adjourned indefinitely," said Mr Kochei.
According to Kochei, what the members wanted to be discussed are issues that are currently before the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
Kochei said that they wrote to SRC over car grants, mortgage, mileage and capping of the sitting sessions and to date no concrete answers had been delivered by the salaries commission.
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CAF Nyanza Representative Beautta Omanga exonerated his team from accusations that they might have been bribed by the Jubilee administration to gloss over the issues MCAs wanted addressed.
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