MCAs vow to sue Migori speaker for axing them from team

Migori County Assembly Speaker Boaz Okoth. [Caleb Kingwara, Standard]

Five Migori MCAs who were members of the County Public Investment and Accounts Committee (CPIAC) have vowed to sue assembly speaker Boaz Okoth for their ‘unlawful removal’ from the committee.

Led by Muhuru MCA Hevrone Mairah, the MCAs claimed they were told that they were no longer members of the committee while they were on official duty in Kisumu "investigating crucial matters raised by the Auditor General in the 2017/018 report that was presented to us".

“But after that, he (the speaker) said the committee should be disbanded,” one of the MCAs said.

They allege that Okoth later replaced them with his cronies, two of whom were key witnesses in his anti-corruption case in Kisumu where together with 13 others, he is facing charges of loss of Sh44 million.

In the seven-member team, Augustine Mwera (Ntimaru East) who chaired the committee, Mairah, Alex Akugo (Central Kanyamkago), Kevins Keke (South Kamagambo) and Albert Odette (Wiga) were axed

They were replaced with Masaba MCA Abedi Maroa, Kanyasa MCA Jacky Paul, Nominated MCA Christine Bihita, North Kanyamkago MCA George Omamba, West Kanyamkago MCA Peter Mijungu.

The MCAs held that their removal from the committee was a ploy to intimidate them.

“He is trying to threaten those who are questioning matters of accountability in the assembly. That is dictatorship in the county assembly,” Mairah said.

The Muhuru ward rep claimed there are some people who do not want to be investigated and seeing that they were firm, they saw it fit to remove them from the committee.

Akugo said the report they got from the Auditor General was a disclaimer that made the assembly leadership refuse to meet the committee the first time they engaged them.

The Central Kanyamkago MCA said some of the most crucial documents were not provided to the Auditor General during auditing and that is one of the things they questioned.

“Because we were getting deep into questioning about these documents, we were stopped midway and told we were required at the assembly,” said Aguko.

While speaking to the Standard on phone, Okoth said he was not involved in the removal of the five MCAs from the CPIAC committee and that he had no powers to do that.

“I am not involved in electing or selecting chairpersons or whoever goes into a committee,” he said.

The Speaker also denied adjourning the meeting in Kisumu and asked the MCAs to raise issues on the anomalies they saw in the report in the assembly.