Former State House Senior Adviser Moses Kuria has, once again, opened up on how Members of Parliament have been receiving bribes to influence key legislative outcomes, less than a week after President William Ruto spoke out on the vice.
Speaking during an interview on Citizen TV, Kuria claimed that the allegations made by the President could be true, revealing how MPs received bribes to impeach the then Majority Leader in the 12th Parliament, Aden Duale, who now serves in the Cabinet.
According to Kuria (who was an MP at the time), legislators received up to Ksh100,000 from the then administration of President Uhuru Kenyatta to carry out the purge on Duale.
This was at a time when a similar wave of division and realignment had taken centre stage in the country’s politics following the split between the Kieleweke and Tangatanga factions.
Duale, one of the legislators who had been politically opposing the Kenyatta-led administration from within, had to be let go, only that MPs had to be “facilitated”, according to the former State House Adviser.
"In the 12th Parliament, we were given some money by the Uhuru Kenyatta regime to remove Aden Duale as the Majority Leader. It is on Hansard that I waved the money I was given there. You cannot say it doesn’t happen," Kuria said.
According to Kuria, the claims were even recorded in the Hansard after he offered to return the money on the floor of the House.
"We were given Ksh100,000 per person to remove Aden Duale and put in place Amos Kimunya. And I went to the floor of the House and said this is the money I was given, and I offered to give it back."
Kuria first made the claim publicly in 2021, when he told the BBC that MPs had received “facilitation” to endorse Kimunya.
Ruto on the Vice
On Monday, President Ruto announced that the government would apprehend and prosecute all leaders, particularly Members of Parliament and Senators, who have been soliciting and receiving bribes to perform their legislative duties.
Speaking during a joint parliamentary group meeting between the Kenya Kwanza Alliance and the Orange Democratic Movement party, the visibly angry Head of State read the riot act to lawmakers following reports that many of them, particularly at the committee level, had been demanding bribes to influence outcomes.
On Tuesday, tension escalated between the legislature and the executive after the National Assembly paralysed all committee activities in protest over Ruto’s recent claims that lawmakers jeopardise parliamentary processes by soliciting bribes.
