NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 29 – Besieged Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza will know her fate Friday even as the 11-member Senate Committee probing her conduct retreated to write its report which set to be tabled before the house.
The Kakamega Senator Boniface Khalwale-led committee retreated to consider evidence presented and determine whether Meru Members of County Assembly (MCAs) had substantiated the 62 allegations leveled against the Governor.
The Senate will tomorrow (Friday) during a special sitting consider the report which is the final day for consideration and determination of the allegations against the governor.
The County Governments Act allows the Senate to consider and make a determination on impeachment motions brought to it by MCAs within ten days.
According to the Act, if the special committee is not satisfied that the county assembly has complied with the procedure set, the special committee shall not proceed with the matter any further and shall report their findings to the Senate.
It further states that if the special committee reports that the particulars of one or more of the allegations against the Governor have been substantiated, the Senate shall, after according the Governor an opportunity to be heard, vote on the impeachment charges in accordance with Article 123 of Constitution.
If a majority of the county delegations of the Senate vote to uphold any impeachment charge, Kawira shall cease to hold office unless she seeks an appeal in the courts.
In their final submission that run long in the night, the Meru County Assembly legal counsel told the committee that MCAs had substantiated all 62 allegations.
Lawyers Muthomi Thiankolu and Jacob Ngwele urged the Khalwale-led committee to recommend the governor’s removal from office in order to solve the political crisis in Meru.
The duo said they had delivered a watertight evidence to prove all the infractions to the law committed by the governor since she was elected as the 3rd governor of Meru.
“Those documents are not compositions of imaginary things that were supposed to keep you busy for nothing,” Muthomi told the committee.
“Meru is in a crisis. It’s under siege. The common ground is that there is a problem. The church, the Njuri Ncheke and even the President have been asked to intervene with little or no success,” he added.
Muthomi challenged the committee to consider all 62 allegations leveled against the governor separately.
He warned that letting the Mwangaza off the hook will be an incentive to other governors to violate the law as the Senate will save them.
“If one of them is substantiated, you have no choice but to send the governor home,” the Meru County Assembly stated.
In a rebuttal, the embattled governor’s lawyers described the impeachment motion as an exercise in futility and merely hot air.
Elias Mutuma, said the only thing MCAs had achieved is to construct a “very negative and scary picture of the governor”, adding that none of the allegations had been proved to warrant her removal.
“They don’t have clean hands in this matter. They are not blameless. They have their own share of blame because they disrespected the governor and put her in an awkward position,” Mutuma stated.
Kawira’s counsel said laying out grounds is not sufficient to have the governor’s removed.
“The grounds must be gross. They must be conspicuous and glaring. There has been no demonstration of such gross violation. Even if there was gross violation, evidence adduced do not support it,” he said.
On claims that the governor had appointed her husband to a public office, Mutuma said the MCAs had not submitted an instrument of appointment to the committee.
“There was intention but no action and you cannot punish the governor on intention,”Mutuma argued.
