NAIROBI: Murang’a Governor Mwangi wa Iria was let off the hook by the Senate last evening after a committee investigating him declared that the accusations against him did not meet the threshold for impeachment.
The special committee that had been appointed to investigate him rejected recommendations from the Murang’a County Assembly that he should be impeached for various violations of the law.
Reading the committee report at 8.40 pm, the chairman David Musila (Kitui County) said, the financial impropriety did not meet the threshold for impeachment.
Earlier, Senators Omar Hassan (Mombasa), Johnstone Muthama (Machakos), Elizabeth Ongoro (Nominated) and Boni Khalwale (Kakamega) questioned why the committee had delayed in tabling the report.
They questioned why Senators Moses Kajwang and Stephen Sang were in the Chamber before the report was ready yet they were members of the special committee. The senators expressed fears that the report could be altered since some members of the committee were absent during its final preparation.
On Thursday, the governor’s defence team persuaded the committee to terminate the proposed impeachment on the grounds that the county assembly had not followed the constitutional provisions in initiating and adopting the impeachment motion.
Wa Iria’s lawyer Ng’ang’a Mbugua argued that the process was unconstitutional and premature. He told the 11-member committee that the assembly violated all the provisions for impeachment in moving the motion by not giving the governor an opportunity to be heard.
His team claimed the MCAs had ill intentions and argued that the governor became a target after he refused to sign into law an unconstitutional bill that would have seen each ward representative control Sh20 million in development funds.
When testifying as an expert witness on Thursday, Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo told the special committee that the agency advised both the assembly and the executive that the appropriation bill was unconstitutional. Because of this, it would not release the Sh700 million development kitty demanded by the MCAs.
Lawyer Mbugua said the right to a fair trial was critical and insisted that the governor should have been allowed him to defend himself before the assembly.
