Fresh wrangles as Charity Ngilu, PS clash over report on truce

Kenya: Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu has explained why she disowned a report prepared by a joint committee of the ministry and the National Lands Commission (NLC) designed to end persistent wrangles between the two parties.

Ms Ngilu on Tuesday told the National Assembly’s Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee that she could not accept the report because the officers, who are purported to have represented the ministry, did not have her blessings and mandate.

The report was to ensure that recommendations contained in an accord signed by Ngilu and NLC Chairman Muhammad Swazuri, in the presence of President Uhuru Kenyatta, were implemented to end the stalemate.

 Ngilu shocked the committee when she insisted that she could not honour the report, despite admission by her Principal Secretary Mariam El Maawy that she is the one who nominated the three officers who sat in the joint committee that prepared the report. El Maawy said only officers appointed by Ngilu could have represented the ministry because she was the one who signed the accord.

“I needed to guide the process but I never got to do it,” Ngilu told the committee.