Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua was on Wednesday kicked out of Parliament for being unprepared for a Senate committee hearing.
The County chief who appeared before the Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee did not have the documents to respond to queries raised by Auditor General Edward Ouko on County expenditure.
At which point the Committee Chairman Senator Moses Kajwang' interrupted the proceeding noting that they could not carry on without the documents that could confirm what he was telling the committee.
“We want quality to be the heart of our proceedings. It will not be productive for us as a committee to continue with this session without seeing the documents you are referring to in your responses,” Kajwang' noted.
The governor told the parliamentary watchdog team that he had already submitted the documents to the office of the Senate Clerk the previous year.
[caption caption="Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua when he appeared before the Senate Public Accounts and Investment Committee on 18/7/2018"]
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“I am appearing today over the same issue that I was supposed to respond to last year before the elections. My assumption was that the documents I submitted last year are still valid and figured out that we don’t need to incur extra costs making photocopies,” he explained.
Noting the misunderstanding, Mutua apologized stating that there was a miscommunication.
The Senate committee has in the past week hosted a number of persons of interest to answer for various scandals and tragedies.
On Wednesday, senators clashed with Solai Dam owner businessman Patel Mansukh and his lawyer Evans Monari over what the legislators termed as
Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja and his Narok counterpart Ledama Ole Kina were unamused by the lawyer who furiously told the committee that the 48 lives lost did not deserve much attention in the probe.
“Monari has said the charges preferred against his client are serious and it carries a life sentence, that it should not be joked around with and these are his Monari) words. We already lost 48 people. That is serious and should not be joked around with as well,” held Senator Sakaja.
Sakaja appealed to the committee to declare the lawyer and Mr Mansukh hostile witnesses.
[caption caption="Senator Mutula Jr during the senate committee hearing on 18/7/2018"]
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