• MCAs say Abdiraham was not legally appointed, was rejected by Public Service Board
• Last week MCAs defied Joho and impeached ally, Transport executive Balala; hearing to come
Image: FILE
Buoyed by their successful rebellion, Mombasa MCAs are planning to remove another ally of Governor Hassan Joho from the county government.
They are targeting Idris Abdirahman, who is the head of subcounty administrators and Joho's director of political affairs.
The county legislators accuse him of being hired irregularly and drawing illegal salaries.
He has dodged questions from the Star.
Last week MCAs impeached Tawfiq Balala, Joho's ally and Transport executive.
Joho doesn't want his executives to be distracted by answering questions from the assembly.
On Tuesday, the county assembly Labour committee is expected to give a statement on Abdirahman's status and possible future.
They say the County Public Service Board did not approve his appointment.
“The CPSB showed us a letter in which they declined his appointment. Now it is a puzzle who appointed him,” an MCA privy to the goings-on told the Star.
On Friday, the County Public Service Board chief executive and spokesperson Jeizan Faruk neither confirmed nor denied the report on the appointment when contacted by the Star.
“I need to talk to the chair of the Labour committee,” Faruk told the Star before promising to call back. Subsequent calls to Faruk were never picked.
The county Labour committee, chaired by Mikindani MCA Renson Thoya, has been compiling evidence against Abdirahman.
The committee was to table findings of their investigation against him last Wednesday.
This did not happen, however, because they had not obtained crucial documents, including copies of Abdirahman’s payslips, which they had requested.
On Thursday, Thoya declined to comment, referring the Star to the assembly Speaker Aharub Khatri.
Khatri was not available because he was being questioned by Senate’s Devolution committee in Nairobi.
Deputy Speaker Fadhili Makarani said the Labour committee requested more time to table its report.
“They said their report is 80 per cent complete and there is some crucial information they are yet to get. They will get the 20 per cent of information they want and will table their report on Tuesday next week,” Makarani said on Friday.
He chaired the Wednesday afternoon county assembly session.
Last Tuesday, the MCAs adopted a motion to impeach Balala, whom they accused of incompetence, arrogance and abuse of office. Joho had tried to prevent the vote and said MCAs were disgruntled because they were denied free-parking stickers.
On Thursday, the MCAs were expected to form the five-member committee to look into allegations against Balala and determine whether they are genuine and warrant impeachment.
They said Abdirahman was working behind the scenes to prevent Balala's impeachment. He held several meetings with the most vocal MCAs to persuade them to leave Balala alone.
But MCAs appeared determined to show the world they were independent and were no longer under Joho's thumb. His first county assembly had been accused of being his rubber stamp.
Abdirahman on Thursday and Friday told the Star, “Call me later."
Jomvu Kuu MCA Atham Shebe, also known as Mukono, the 'fist', authored Balala’s impeachment motion. He said many people in the county who need to go home.
“We want a statement of his [Abdirahman's] status in the county government. We believe he is not supposed to be there. He is a mercenary,” Shebe said.
Meantime, the Operation Fagia Bunge lobby hit the halfway mark in their bid to collect 200,000 signatures to petition President Uhuru to dissolve the county government.
The lobby’s secretary Kalinga Mgandi on Monday told the Star they had collected 104,682 signatures by Sunday evening.
“Already, we have surpassed the legal requirement of not less than 10 per cent of the registered voters needed to support a petition,” he said.
Mombasa has 596,485 registered voters. Ten per cent is 59,648 voters.
“These numbers show clearly the direction Mombasa people want to go. We are forging ahead with our petition to dissolve the county government,” Mgandi said.