ANC party leader Musalia Mudavadi wants President Uhuru Kenyatta to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the sugar saga.
Mudavadi in a statement said the rejection of a joint committee report on the contraband sugar indicated that Parliament was ill-prepared.
“Both 500,000 impoverished sugarcane farmers, ailing sugar factories and millions of sugar-consuming Kenyans, in general, have been thrown under the bus by none other than their institution of Parliament,” Musalia said on Friday.
Parliament rejected the sugar probe report for the second time on grounds that the team led by Kieni MP Kanini Kega did not conclusively interrogate critical issues raised.
The Nasa principal wants Parliament to be investigated for abetting criminal negligence and corruption.
He said Parliament’s eagerness to take over the investigations was suspicious reiterating it had no capacity to do so.
Mudavadi added that the committee was driven by personal interests aimed at covering up for the real culprits.
The debate on Thursday punctuated by protests and claims of bribery as MPs closed ranks to discard recommendations against Rotich, Adan and former Agriculture CS Willy Bett.
“What played out at the committee and in plenary suggests the whole affair was driven by vested interests and compromised members,” Mudavadi said.
“The whole process was designed to cover-up,” he added.
“No one can be held accountable after this sabotage by the National Assembly.”
He said the committees of parliament are instruments of sanitising sleaze and a national dialogue was necessary to kill the vice.
“It is the reason we urgently need an all-inclusive national dialogue to look at our governance structure.”
Mudavadi accused Parliament of allowing the contraband and contaminated sugar to once again flood the market.
“Kenyans are the poorer for they will not now know if they are imbibing poisonous sugar and sh10.6 billion in taxes due from the imports will be lost.”
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He added that parliament had betrayed Kenyans and willfully laid the tombstone on ailing 500,000 sugar farmers and factories’ hopes of a revival.
Mudavadi further added that it embarrassed Uhuru in his anti-corruption crusade by showing shameful display of complicity.
“Its action has emboldened sugar barons, aided evasion of tax and flies in the face of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s anti-corruption crusade,” he said.
The rejected report recommended that Treasury CS Henry Rotich and former Agriculture CS Willy Bett be investigated for issuing Gazette notices and the importation of sugar and recommending duty waiver for 14 companies that evaded tax worth Sh10 billion.
“It does not matter that the invocation of the Uhuru’s name was used to defeat an already compromised report.”
“The president owes it to Kenyans to exonerate himself from this complicity smudge. The only credible avenue is for him to establish a Judicial Commission of Inquiry,” Musalia added.
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