Senate finance team cautions defiant county bosses

By MOSES NJAGIH

Kenya: Members of Finance Committee of the Council of Governors failed to honour summons from the Senate Committee on Finance, prompting a strong caution by the legislators that disciplinary action could be meted against individual governors who fail to respond.

Only two of the ten governors, who are members of the committee, Kitui’s Julius Malombe and his Migori counterpart Okoth Obado, were present, forcing the committee to postpone the proceedings for lack of quorum on the part of the governors’ committee.

On Tuesday, Senate Committee chairman Billow Kerrow (above) cautioned that they will pursue legal penalties stipulated in law and other “unspecified punishment” if the council members fail to honour the summons to appear on Thursday next week.

“The Council of Governors is the legal entity that we can pursue given that they even enjoy government funding. They may dilly-dally but we will not hesitate to take the legal line. We will not restrict ourselves only to the stipulated penalties,” warned Kerrow.

Oversight role

The governors’ committee members were to appear to shed light on queries that the Controller of Budget has raised on the expenditure of public money disbursed to counties in the first quarter. Other members of the committee, which is chaired by Wajir’s Ahmed Abdulahi, include Sospeter Ojaamong (Busia), Salim Mvurya (Kwale) and Nathif Adam (Garissa).

Abdulahi, Ojaamong and Adam wrote a letter to the Senate committee arguing that they could not appear before it as they had already moved to court seeking opinion on whether senators have powers to summon them.

The senators later questioned Malombe over irregularities cited by the Controller of Budget in the use of Kitui County funds, including allegations that the county had spent Sh25 million for travels in three months.

“Is it really reasonable to spend Sh25 million on travel expenses in three months? Were these foreign or local travels? We cannot doubt what the controller has said,” posed Kerrow.

However, the governor insisted that the figure could not have been purely for travel, since even their trainings are conducted within Kutui. He pleaded for more time to respond to the cited irregularity.