Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi will on Monday know his future in the impeachment case he is facing.
The select committee which was hearing the motion by Bumula MP Jack Wamboka concluded on Friday and retreated to write the report.
The team chaired by Marsabit Woman Representative Naomi Waqo assisted by Kathiani MP Robert Mbui has assured it would give a sound verdict.
Waqo assured both parties in the ouster case that the committee would apply the law when considering the issues before it.
“We shall analyse each and every evidence that was submitted to this committee by all parties and make our findings as per Article 152 (9) of the constitution,” Waqo said.
Other members of the team are Kitui South MP Rachel Nyamai and Samuel Chepkonga of Ainabkoi, Tharaka MP Gitonga Murugara, Ruaraka’s Tom Kajwang, Malulu Injendi of Malava, Kirinyaga Woman Representative Njeri Maina, Matuga’s Kassim Tandaza, Busia’s Catherine Omanyo and Yusuf Farah of Wajir West.
MPs have already been called for a special sitting on Monday where the impeachment motion is among the weighty issues to be deliberated upon.
The committee is retreating with a heavy agenda on its plate after parties persuaded them to agree with their arguments in the case.
Agriculture PS Kiprono Ronoh and the director of Kel Chemicals will not be invited to make a statement before the committee.
The committee in its decision on Friday said the witnesses were not admissible, citing procedural requirements.
MP Wamboka sought to introduce witnesses midway through the hearing.
Sources intimated to the Star that seven out of the 11 MPs in the team voted against their appearance.
The stakes are high.
In the retreat, the outstanding issue that the committee would be deciding on is whether the CS had a role in the procurement of the substandard fertiliser.
The team is also to decide if the responsibility on the part of the CS and also whether the allegations he has no locus standi will prevail.
MPs are also to rule on the place of Linturi’s past love affair with Aldai MP Maryanne Kitany which featured prominently in the hearing.
In their closing statements, both sides pleaded for their case with Wamboka imploring the team “not to disappoint farmers”.
Bible verses were thrown at random by both sides, ostensibly to prick the committees’ conscience about the underlying issues.
Wamboka, sounding as if the verdict was pre-empted, said, “There are so many ways to kill a rat. Some would use poison. Some would burn the house. I would sit on the rat and it would die.”
He dismissed the defence put the by the Cabinet Secretary and his team terming it a thief misleading people responding to alarm about a sleaze they have executed.
“This is a story of a thief running and misleading those pursuing by pointing at others as the thief,” he said.
Wamboka watered down Linturi’s take that there was no fake fertiliser but substandard one saying the words are one and the same.
“Minister says there was no fake fertiliser but substandard fertiliser. These are just semantics,” he said, quoting Mother Teresa that “God doesn’t require us to succeed, but to try.”
“For the years you live on this world Kenyan farmers will never forget this select committee, the first in our new constitution,” Wamboka said.
He said in the event the committee fails to carry the charges to full trial, he would be proceeding with the matter in other avenues.
“We would be proceeding because we have the interest of farmers. Because of fake fertiliser, Mithika must go,” Wamboka said.
Linturi’s team fought back, maintaining that the motion had no basis but ‘a petty gossip about a love affair, a witch-hunt.’
The CS’ lawyer Muthomi Thiankolu urged MPs to ignore the assertions by the motion mover as that would amount to vacating their constitutional responsibility.
“The committee exists to strike the tough balance between democracy and justice. In the case where there are these two, justice prevails,” Thiankolu said.
He urged the committee not to succumb to pressure that 149 of their colleagues voted to approve the motion.
“Even if there were 349 votes, that would not be the standard for justice,” the lawyer said, asking the team not to be quick to judge the CS from the issues canvassed by the motion.
He said that impeachment, as an accountability mechanism, “must be involved in the right occasion, with facts and the right allegations.”
“We cannot accept that it will be invoked because Linturi has refused to fall in love, marry someone, and has a bad reputation. If we do so, we will scandalise our constitution.”
The lawyer further asked MPs not to accept being ‘treated to a cruel joke which invokes the provisions of the constitution in vain.’
The CS’ side also pleaded with the committee to consider if what was presented as evidence in the case was sufficient to sustain the charges.
“Where is the evidence that supports either allegations one two or three…it is not every material that a disputant presents that counts as evidence,” Thiankolu said.
