• Waititu was charged with corruption and barred from accessing from office. He denied wrongdoing.
• The county assembly went ahead and impeached him, accusing him of gross violation of the Constitution, the County Governments Act, 2012, and the PFM act and PPD Act, gross misconduct and committing a crime under the National Law.
Image: FILE
Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu will appear before the Senate plenary next Tuesday to defend himself even as wrangles within Jubilee threaten to take a heavy toll on him.
Waititu was charged with corruption and barred from accessing from office. He denied any wrongdoing. The county assembly went ahead and impeached him. MCAs accused the embattled governor of gross violation of the Constitution, the County Governments Act, 2012, the PFM Act, the PPD Act, gross misconduct and committing a crime.
Waititu’s future now lies with the senators. Yesterday, Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka told the Star the governor and his accusers, Kiambu MCAs, will appear on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively to argue out their cases.
“We will listen to them on January 28 and 29. Then we will debate and finally take a vote,” Lusaka said.
Waititu will, however, be having an uphill task in the divided Jubilee-dominated house. Jubilee factions — Kieleweke, allied to President Uhuru Kenyatta, and DP William Ruto’s Tangatanga — are fighting to control the impeachment process.
Senators supporting the President and the BBI are reportedly backing his removal from office, while those allied to the DP are fighting to save him.
On Tuesday, Kieleweke senators ganged up with their ODM-Nasa counterparts and engaged in a heated debate with their Tangatanga counterparts on whether a special committee should be formed to probe the charges as opposed to the plenary.
They voted 28 against 15 to sink the motion by Majority leader Kipchumba Murkomen’s motion that sought to form a special team.
Kieleweke claimed the proposed membership of the committee was skewed to favour Waititu, a confidant of the DP.
“Politics is about perception. Let’s change this list so that the other people from the other side (Kieleweke) can feel confident,” nominated Senator Farhiya Ali said.
The confrontation and the voting pattern are once again expected when the governor appears before the whole house. The Kieleweke-Nasa unity could spell doom for the embattled county.
Section 33(7) of the County Government Act states, “If a majority of all the members of the Senate vote to uphold any impeachment charge, the governor shall cease to hold office.”
This implies that at least 24 of the 47 senators will be required to vote out the governor. Currently, Jubilee controls 27 counties (delegations), while Nasa is in charge of 20.
But with several Jubilee and Kanu senators having voted against Murkomen’s motion, it will be a tall order for Tangatanga to marshal the requisite numbers to save Waititu.
Those in the former group include Irungu Kangata (Murang’a, Jubilee), Kimani Wamatangi (Kiambu), Johnson Sakaja (Nairobi), Ephraim Maina (Nyeri) and Kanu’s Gideon Moi (Baringo).
The charges by Kiambu MCAs read, “There was a lack of accountability in the management of county resources by incurring unsustainable debts and other pending obligations to the tune of Sh4 billion.”
They said Waititu violated Articles 176(1) and 185 of the Constitution by disregarding the county assembly as an arm of county government through systematic non-remittance of requisitioned funds in 2018-19.
“The governor diverted funds intended for use by the assembly to projects where he would obtain personal benefits through irregular procurement,” the document read.
Also charged alongside Waititu are his wife Susan Wangari and eight others. They were accused of irregularly awarding themselves Sh580 million tenders. The county chief was further charged with abuse of office in the award of tenders to get kickbacks.