Kiambu Senator Karungo wa Thang’wa on Tuesday revealed plans to table a new bill in the Senate which seeks to streamline the impeachment process for county government officials to ensure it is fair from the get-go.
Speaking during an interview on Spice FM, Thang’wa said that his bill which is due for its second hearing any time now covers county assembly impeachment hearings which are often kickstarted by the assembly speaker notifying the senate speaker of an impeachment motion and resolution.
“I have a law on impeachment which is supposed to go to the second reading anytime from now. It has already been committed to the Senate. That is the impeachment of governors, speakers of county assemblies, CECs, and even the deputy governor,” Thang’wa stated.
“The law says, before you start the issue of investigation, we have to do preliminary objections that has to take three days. Because I had seen like the case of Waititu where the speaker said there were numbers and there were no numbers,” Thang’wa added.
Referring to the case of the failed impeachment of Kericho Governor Erick Mutai, Thang’wa said that if the law had been in place when the case started, then the senate would not have had to debate on the numbers technicality and it would have ended before it started.
He noted that the vague laws surrounding the filing of an impeachment motion and the notifying of the resolution of county assemblies MCAs to the senate speaker had led to some governors facing bogus impeachment charges.
This, Thang’wa said, was because the Senate often does not have a way to ensure that the impeachment charges were filed or even an impeachment process was carried out at the county level as the whole process kicks off in the Senate upon notification by the county assembly speaker.
“It is to give the senate the opportunity to investigate whether the process was carried out because the law just says that if there is an impeachment, the speaker of the county assembly writes to the speaker of the senate,” Thang’wa noted.
"Can you imagine if the speaker of a national assembly just goes mad and decides to write with no impeachment? The process just kicks in,” he added.
However, Thang’wa urged the MCAs to not be afraid of partaking in their mandate to impeach underperforming governors in fear of repercussions upon a failed impeachment attempt.
“The MCAs did their work. And I want to tell the MCAs because I am a former MCA continue doing your work. Don’t be afraid of anybody. Don’t be afraid that when it comes to the Senate it will be sent back to you or you will be sent back home. Just do your work.”
Addressing the case of the Kericho County MCAs in particular, Thang’wa noted, “Just do your work because right now, the governor of Kericho is a different man to the MCAs so you do your work as long as you are not being malicious.”
