By Geoffrey Mosoku

Nairobi, Kenya: Parliament’s Committee on Appointment Sunday evening retreated to begin writing its report on the 16 Cabinet secretary nominees after completion of public vetting at the weekend.

After the three-day exercise, the committee led by National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi headed to the Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club in Nairobi to conclude its work.

The report is expected to be ready by this evening, and will be tabled in the House tomorrow afternoon for either adoption or rejection.

Sunday, Leader of Majority Aden Duale was upbeat that they will conclude their work on time. The law requires the report is tabled in the House within 14 days after submission by President Uhuru Kenyatta of the names to Parliament. The deadline expires Tuesday afternoon.

“The report will be ready by tomorrow (Monday) afternoon and I will table it on the floor of the House Tuesday afternoon,” Duale said.

He said Parliament will have the opportunity to adopt the report, reject it or move amendments.

Sunday Duale said he could not comment on whether the nominees satisfied the committee in their responses during the public vetting.

“I cannot talk on behalf of the 29 members whether they (candidates) impressed us; we will do a collective report not forgetting that Parliament has the discretion of adopting or rejecting the report,” he said. MPs can also reject individual nominees if they feel the committee mishandled the exercise.

Most nominees, especially women nominees, appeared to impress the legislators who used the one and half hours slotted for each to seek clarification on their suitability.

Others who are relatively new faces to the public used the opportunity to tell Kenyans what they hope to achieve if their nominations were successful.

Corruption claims

Agriculture nominee Felix Kosgey, for example, told the MPs that he will push for the use of fuel levy to prioritise the construction of feeder/access roads to farmlands so as to facilitate produce to fast reach the market.

However some nominees such as Charity Ngilu, Michael Kamau, Davies Chirchir, Fred Matiang’i and Jacob Kaimenyi had to defend themselves after the committee received memoranda objecting their appointments.

Ngilu who is the nominee for Lands, Housing and Urban development armed herself with a parliamentary report that exonerated her from blame following spates of corruption claims while at the helm of the Water ministry.

She said accusations that she oversaw mismanagement of funds, especially for use in sinking boreholes, were made by corrupt individuals fighting her efforts to clean up the ministry at that time.

“I have been exonerated of any corruption allegations in a report by the Committee of Lands and Natural Resources,” she said.

Kamau, the Roads and Infrastructure nominee also defended himself from allegations that he mishandled the controversial registration of student engineers who had graduated from some public universities. He said the matter was dealt with by the independent Engineers Registration Board.

Education nominee Kaimenyi used the opportunity to fight claims of high handedness after a man who lost his wife accused him of protecting a doctor over professional negligence claims.

Mining nominee Najib Balala was mainly taken to task to explain decisions he made while serving as Tourism minister.