A chairman of a parliamentary committee last week sent his colleagues and witnesses who had appeared before the panel into a frenzy.
The senator, whose committee was questioning top managers of the Kenya Pipeline Corporation over oil spill in Kiboko River in Makueni, had difficulties pronouncing the word 'oil'. He kept on pronouncing the word as 'oiro', forcing a witness to seek his intervention to know the meaning of 'oiro'. "Oooh, how do you pronounce it, this thing that keeps leaking from your pipes all the time?" he asked.
Amid laughter in the room, he continued, "You know English sio lugha yetu. Hii ni lugha ya wazungu (English is not our native language. It's a white man's language).
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MPs seem to have perfected the habit of abusing the immunity of the House when transacting business either in the plenary or during committee sittings. A case in point was this week when Webuye West MP Dan Wanyama made an unsubstantiated sensational claim against a Principal Secretary who was appearing as a witness before the National Assembly’s Sports Committee.
Taking advantage of the live coverage of the committee proceedings, Wanyama dropped a bombshell and quietly walked out to avoid substantiating his claim, when substantive chair Victor Munyaka (Machakos Town) demanded that he substantiates or apologises, the ‘good lawmaker’ was nowhere forcing, Munyaka to order the claim expunged from the records.
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A serious alteration that nearly degenerated into a fistfight ensured in Parliament between a flamboyant ODM MP and a senior sergeant-at-arms in the National Assembly. Hell broke loose when the parliamentary staff denied the vocal first-term MP access to the dining hall with his three male visitors. This was against the norm as MPs are free to access Parliament at any given time with anyone after getting a clearance from the Clerk.
The sergeant-at-arms is also said to be at loggerheads with fellow staff and has been reported to the management but no action has been taken. His colleagues accuse him of always harassing everyone who crosses overdoing their work oblivious of the rudeness and highhandedness of this man. The MP promised to go take up with the clerk when Parliament resumes from recess next week.
