Members of the County Assembly vote to impeach Kivutha Kibwana

Makueni, Kenya: Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana has been impeached by Members of the County Assembly (MCAs).

Some 35 MCAs largely from the Wiper party voted for the impeachment while 10 members drawn from Muungano party voted against the impeachment.

The motion required the support of at least 32 members out of the 47 to sail through.

The motion to impeach Prof Kibwana was moved by Wote Ward representative Sammy Maseka.

According to Mr Maseka, the governor violated Article 179 of the Constitution by usurping the powers and functions of the County Executive Committee which has the executive authority by giving them directives not to request funds for activities and programmes of the county assembly.

Maseka is also accusing the governor of violating Article 75(1) of the Constitution by storming the assembly on September 23, 2014, and leading a social media campaign to  feed propaganda to the people against the county assembly.

He said the governor also violated provisions of the Public Finance Management Act 2012 by directing his Finance Executive not to prepare and submit to the County Assembly the Makueni County Appropriations Bill 2014.

Others reasons for the impeachment include sanctioning expenditure on programmes like civic eduction, bursaries, and boda boda empowerment without any regulations or guidelines.

The governor was also accused of refusing to consider, approve and assent to Bills passed by the assembly, contrary to section 30(2) of the County Governments Act 2012.

The Bills he is said to have refused to assent to include the Makueni County Administration Act 2014, Makueni County Wards Development Fund Act 2014, and the Makueni County Appropriations Act 2014

Governor Kibwana's lawyer Wilfred Nyamu, who had earlier appeared before the assembly in defence of Kibwana, termed the impeachment an illegality in law, insisting that the grounds for impeachment did not not meet the threshold.

Mr Nyamu said the motion did not adhere to the standing orders, which require the governor to be served with notice of the motion three days before its debate, together with all the evidence for the allegations levelled against him.

The counsel said the impeachment was based on vendetta, and was aimed at settling political differences.

On his Facebook account, Kibwana posted the following: "I accept to follow the leadership of the People of Makueni. Let the MCAs impeach the 1,000,000 of us."


 

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