- The Speaker ruled that the motion to impeach County Secretary Dr Samuel Mwaura had been defeated.
- Naivasha East MCA Stanley Karanja rose on a point of order saying the MCAs had no constitutional rights to impeach Mwaura.
Image: BEN NDONGA
Nakuru MCAs on Thursday nearly came to blows after a motion to impeach Nakuru County Secretary Dr Samuel Mwaura flopped.
The motion which had been tabled by Menengai East MCA Wilson Wachira was dismissed.
Out of 69 members present, 67 voted against formation of an Ad hoc committee to investigate Mwaura for alleged gross violation of the Constitution, gross misconduct and incompetence.
"The threshold provided for creating an Ad Hoc committee has not been met as 67 have voted 'No'. Two, including Wachira, abstained from voting," Speaker Joel Karuri said.
The Speaker ruled that the motion to impeach Mwaura had thus been defeated.
The ruling followed a heated debate after a section of MCAs who had pushed for impeachment changed tune and claimed they had no powers to impeach Mwaura.
Naivasha East MCA Stanley Karanja rose on a point of order saying the MCAs had no constitutional rights to impeach Mwaura.
He submitted that MCAs are only mandated to procedurally impeach the governor, the speaker and county executive committee members(CECs).
The same MCA had since last week insisted that they would impeach Mwaura.
However, MCAs opposed to the impeachment opposed his plans to side with them and urged him to stand with his colleague Wachira and push for passage of the motion.
Words were exchanged as MCAs made their way to the center of the Assembly.
The war of words then turned into physical confrontation and exchange of light blows and body checks between some MCAs.
The confrontation continued for about five minutes before the House was brought to order.
"The motion has been irregularly brought to the House," Karanja said.
Leader of Majority Alex Langat said the issues brought before the House did not meet the threshold to warrant an impeachment.
He said that for MCAs to end people’s career, issues raised needed to be strong, fair, clear and specific.
“The MCAs who pushed for the impeachment clearly knew that there was no standing order to impeach the County Secretary,” Langat said.
He said as soon as the MCAs knew they had no power to impeach Mwaura, they turned the respectable House into a joke in a bid to have their way.
“We do not want to continue making fun on the floor of the House in a special sitting done in the middle of a recess,” Langat said.
Karuri, having put the House in order, said the debate would continue and proposed that every member cast a vote to either support or oppose formation of the ad hoc committee.
One by one, each member including Karanja opposed. Wachira was left alone and he instead abstained from voting together with another member.
The House was then adjourned to June 4, 2024.
Wachira had claimed in the motion that Mwaura violated the Constitution when he failed to appear before the Assembly’s committees severally despite being procedurally summoned.
He is said this amounted to refusal to be questioned on issues touching on the performance of the County Public Service Board.
“The County Secretary is accused of gross misconduct for violating the rights and fundamental freedom of Kenyans and violating the Leadership and Integrity Act,” the motion read in part.
Wachira further alleged that Mwaura disobeyed a court order that stopped the county government’s interference with the running of War Memorial Hospital.
Mwaura declined to respond to the allegations on the floor of the House.