Nyeri county executives fail to appear before probe team

By NDERITU GICHURE

NYERI COUNTY: Attempts by two committees of the Nyeri County Assembly to grill two county executive members flopped after they failed to turn up as expected.

The joint committee on Agriculture and Trade had summoned Stanley Miano of Trade and his Agriculture counterpart Shadrack Mubea, to shed light on the county government’s Coffee Pool Marketing initiative.

When the two arrived for the grilling yesterday morning, they pleaded with the committees to be allowed to attend a meeting convened by Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua and coffee farmers.

“We pleaded to be given time to prepare for the meeting with the governor, as he is set to meet coffee farmers over the same issue that you want addressed. We will show up in the afternoon,” Mubea said.

However, the two failed to turn up at 2pm as they had earlier promised, but instead sent short message service (SMS) texts to the Agriculture team chairman Kibira Ngunyi, saying they are tied up at Wambugu Farmers Training Centre, the venue of the meeting.

Speaking on the phone separately, the two said they could not honour their promises as the meeting between farmers and the governor extended longer than anticipated.

“I was the master of ceremonies at the meeting and there is no way I would have left the farmers and the governor on their own,” Mubea explained.

Miano said they agreed to reschedule the meeting after a talk he was to present to farmers extended beyond the time limit.

“We decided to have another date for the meeting. It was not our fault as we had not expected the meeting to go beyond 2pm,” Miano said.

The two promised to cooperate with the two committees for the interest of coffee farmers.