Probe graft claims in Parliament and expose culprits

Last month, Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi decried the slow pace of investigations by House committees that according to him, allow members time to alter findings.

For the better part of last week, there were reports that some Members of Parliament, who constitute the powerful Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC), had hatched a scheme to oust their chairman, Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba.

Claims against Mr Namwamba by fellow committee members include corruption, failure to delegate duties and too many foreign trips. Claims of corruption in House committees and Parliament as a whole are not new in the country. In fact, there are reports that House committees are more often than not, compromised to the extent of writing doctored reports.

Further, committees take too long to conclude cases and there have been instances where some committee members were said to have gone out of their way to meet individuals adversely mentioned in alleged scams in order to strike bargains and at worst, extort from them.

There have even been cases of cash-for-questions. A report by the Institute for Social Accountability in 2012 claimed that House committees were not driven by objectivity, but rather by political affiliations.

That seemed to have morphed into a worse form; greed for money and favours. No doubt, these claims cast Parliament in bad light. The National Assembly speaker and members must therefore act to restore the dignity of Parliament.

The Public Accounts Committee, as the name suggests, is expected to stand up to corruption and to save public funds from misuse, yet the committee finds itself in an unenviable position of defending its character.

Other claims include the love of foreign junkets.

Though some of the trips are warranted, in most, it appears, the motivation has solely been to earn per diem and other allowances. It is ironical that the institution tasked with oversight over public funds is engaged in wasteful adventures. That should not happen.

A case in point is the various trips committee members made to Canada, South Africa, France and India, ostensibly to investigate the procurement of material, especially the Biometric Voter Registration kits by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

In view of the fact that thorough investigations had been carried out by the Auditor General on the same issue, PAC would have saved the public millions of shillings by acting on the Auditor General's report.

These allegations are serious and it was comforting to learn of Mr Muturi's decision to call for an internal audit of the house committees. Even though this is welcome, questions abound as to whether self-investigation, given the propensity of MPs to tailor reports, will reveal the extent of the rot in the committees.

But we hasten to give it the benefit of the doubt. The speaker should go beyond that. For example, he ought to ensure that committees do not duplicate work and where local institutions have undertaken investigations, public funds are not wasted on foreign trips that yield nothing.

Parliament's fiduciary duty to the public cannot be gainsaid. The speaker of the National Assembly must ensure it remains so, always.