The Senate has set the date for hearing the impeachment of Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko.
On Wednesday, December 9, the house agreed to convene on December 17th and 18th to deliberate on the charges levelled against Governor Sonko.
Earlier in the day, the Senate Business Committee had proposed that the impeachment hearing should be decided by a committee of 11 senators.
The proposed committee members were subject to approval by the house during its afternoon plenary.
However, Senator Poghisio declined to move a motion to appoint the committee. The house is now expected to prepare for the highly anticipated impeachment hearing.
The proposed legislators included Samson Cheragei (Nandi), Charles Reubenson Kibiru (Kirinyaga), Hargura Godana (Marsabit), Abdirahman Ali Hassan (Wajir), Fred Outa (Kisumu), Mohamed Faki (Mombasa).
Nominated senators Alice Milgo, Christine Zawadi, Okong’o Omogeni, Judith Pareno and Petronila Were had also been proposed.
Speaker Ken Lusaka stated that the proceedings would be conducted in a hybrid system where senators were given the choice of participating either virtually or in the house.
Speaker Lusaka’s decision to include virtual participation in the proceedings triggered opposition from senators.
They expressed fears about the vulnerability of virtual methods of voting citing the chaos that happened during the governor’s impeachment motion in the Nairobi County Assembly.
The senators expressed concern that it would be difficult to establish the authenticity of electronic votes given the risk of manipulation.
Governor Sonko has been accused of violating Section 104 of the Public Finance Management Act on the responsibilities and the powers of the county treasury.
“Whence through action, inaction, omissions and commissions, he continues to preside over a broken public finance management system,” reads the Nairobi County Assembly’s letter to the Senate.
“The governor has violated the provisions of Article 5.5 of the Deed of the Transfer of Functions by his refusal to hand over the necessary documentation to enable the KRA to undertake optimum revenue collection under the transferred functions,” the document added.
