NAROK: The Narok County standoff that saw two people shot dead by police on Monday continued Tuesday with two rival camps blaming each other for the chaos.
MPs from the county supporting the embattled Governor Samuel Ole Tunai came to his defense while those opposing his leadership blamed the governor for the woes bedeviling the county.
A petition detailing the accusations leveled against the governor has been presented to the Senate.
Mr Tunai fell out with his opponents, who include Senator Stephen ole Ntutu, over claims the firm managing the lucrative Mara conservancy has failed to remit to the county government over Sh126 million out of the alleged Sh144 million that it had collected.
He is also accused of backing flawed procurement processes and contracting companies that are allegedly associated with him.
"The procurement process in the county is flawed and deliberately tilted to favour political cronies, friends and merchants of corruption...We, therefore, demand that the governor gives a satisfactory explanation to the issues raised and must take responsibility for all misdeeds of his government. The reply of the foregoing must be within the next 21 days, failure to which we shall be left with no option but to directly exercise the sovereign power of the people as bestowed upon us by the Constitution of Kenya forthwith," read the petition.
It is the same petition that the demonstrators had sought to present to the governor when the police moved in on them on Monday.
The demonstrations, which rocked the town brought to the fore deep seated political differences between the Governor and his opponents led by Senator Ntutu.
READ: CID summon Narok leaders over Monday protests
Other MPs opposed to the governor are Motalel Kenta (Narok North), Korei Lemein (Narok South) and Patrick Ntutu (Narok West).
At the National Assembly, three MPs allied to the governor came to his defense and told off those opposed to his leadership.
Gideon Konchellah (Kilgoris), Soipan Tuya (Woman representative) and Ken Kiloku (Narok East) in a press conference yesterday came to Tunai's defense.
The MPs said the demonstrations were a case of 'corruption fighting back', and claimed the leaders who organised the protests were hiding behind divisive issues such as the fight for resources for partisan political gain.
"It is clear the conflicts emerging are simply a battle for control of resources. But stagnating Narok County through retrogressive politics is to strangle development in the county, and to hinder tourism in Narok and in Kenya..." the MPs said in their statement.
"What our colleagues did is unfortunate. We advise the leadership of Narok to respect the law of the land. The Senate went to Narok to conduct investigations and so far nothing has come out. If the governor was cleared, then there must be something sinister that his opponents want. They should go to court if they have legitimate concerns," said Mr Konchellah.
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Ms Tuya termed the demonstrations as unnecessary and accused the organisers of being dishonest with the county residents.
"The incident was very unfortunate. We have not failed in our efforts to resolve the issue raised by our opponents. The people who organised the protests should tell us what interests they have," she said.
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