Bribery allegations rocking the Parliamentary Accounts Committee could hurt the watchdog's probe into some sensitive procurement scandals.
PAC is said to be divided over the content of some of the investigatory reports that are yet to be concluded, among them the ones involving the judiciary, procurement of a luxury jet for Deputy President William Ruto for a trip and the Biometric Voter Registration kits.
The Star has established that there is a push by 'external forces' to have the report on the BVRs and that of the financial impropriety in the judiciary altered to exonerate implicated powerful individuals.
The committee is compiling the final report on the tendering and procurement of the Sh3.9 billion BVR kits and the judiciary probe.
According to the Auditor General report, the government lost more than Sh4 billion in the error-fraught purchase of the BVR kits, which largely failed in the March 4, 2013 poll, compromising the credibility of the election outcome.
But powerful forces in government are said to have infiltrated and tried to influence the committee, a move PAC chairman Ababu Namwamba is said to have resisted.
The committee has already compiled a draft report, which one of the committee members described as 'explosive', with career-ending recommendations for electoral staff implicated.
Jubilee and some ODM MPs said to have contact with individuals adversely mentioned, have allegedly hatched a plot to kick out Namwamba to neutralise the 'high voltage investigations' into the IEBC.
The ruling elite consider the Budalangi MP too rigid and hands on in the drafting of the report.
Curiously, the battles have sucked in some ODM members who are said to be unhappy with the rise of Namwamba to the powerful position of party secretary general.
They want him removed as PAC chairman and then push him out of the party on integrity issues.
"The hullabaloo that Namwamba does not delegate is because he has refused to play ball. It is obvious that some MPs want the final report to exonerate implicated IEBC officials," said Nakuru West MP Samwel Arama.
Arama, who had been sitting in the PAC committee before he was de-whippped by his party – ODM, told the Star that the deadlock in the committee is about those out to cut deals against patriotic leaders on a "clean mission".
"We are going to expose the MPs who brought money to have the JSC report altered in favour of some individuals and those pushing MPs to pocket money to doctor the IEBC report," he said.
Interestingly, some committee members are said to have opposed a recommendation by Namwamba at one of the sittings last week to have EACC investigate the bribery allegations.
"His suggestion was strongly resisted by those peddling the vile slander against the chairman," said a committee member.
South Mugirango MP Manson Nyamweya urged those with evidence of bribery to follow the parliamentary standing orders and table evidence.
"These are malicious statements. We have the standing orders that govern committee operations," he said on the phone.
Saying he did not want to justify the allegations by responding to them,
Namwamba regretted that forces from outside the National Assembly had succeeded in distracting the committee from its mandate.
“Partisan politics, selfish interests and ulterior external influence can only poison the atmosphere in the committee, thus seriously compromising our capacity to effectively watch over public funds. We have worked very well together until we started handling politically sensitive issues,” he said.
The chairman asked members to resist the temptation to destabilise the committee.
“Our unity of purpose across political lines, devoid of selfish interests and above external pressures, must remain our strength as a committee,” he told the Star.