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"content": "page 114. Apart from page 114 paragraph 41 of that document, this is where the county assembly kept on emphasising the issue of personal as opposed to collective responsibility. If you look at paragraph 41 at page 114 of the Governor’s documents, Volume III,it says:- “We are of the view that collective responsibility is policy governance and accountability concept and not a principle of personal liability or individual culpability. If it were so, in the instant case, collective responsibility will imply that all individual members of the various organs of the county government will be personally responsible for acts or omissions of any person in the employment of the county government. Collective responsibility does not mean that the leader or head is individually responsible and politically liable for acts or omissions of subordinates. If collective responsibility were to be a principle of culpability, it will follow that all the persons who are collectively bound must be individually answerable, blameworthy and accountable. It is not the intendment and the import of the concept of collective responsibility.” Mr. Speaker, Sir, what this decision is saying is that whereas the Governor is the accountable head of the government, use of the public resources and decisions of the government, for purposes of impeachment, there must be an allegation that the Governor did personally to warrant the provisions of Article 181 taking effect. For instance, if the Governor wrote a letter directing something awful to be done, that is a ground for impeachment. If the Governor directed the expenditure of public resources, contrary to the provisions of public finance, that is a ground for impeachment. However, you cannot impeach a Governor based on the normal usual operational challenges in the county government, most of which can be addressed through other mechanisms. For instance, if you look at the allegation one, there is a charge that the Governor failed to account or make proper disclosure of Kshs352, 976, 913. What is the import of this allegation? The import is that the Governor is the actual accounting officer for public finance management purposes which is not the case. Mr. Speaker, Sir, secondly, there are other mechanisms to address this particular issue. If you look at the Public Finance Management Act, there are structures on which county finances are supposed to be managed right from procurement up to payment. At no point in time in that layout structure is the county governor involved in terms of approval or otherwise. At the end of the day, the use of these monies, the Governor is accountable to the Senate and the county assembly. For purposes of culpability, we want to find out what did the Governor do in terms of not accounting for this money? Is this allegation true in the first place? If they are saying that Kshs352,976,913 has not been accounted for and the allegation is based on the report which has been submitted by the County Executive Committee member for finance to the county assembly, the county assembly has not bothered to enquire and issue summons in accordance with the provisions of Article 125 of the Constitution which gives them power to summon anyone to appear before them. Did the county assembly summon the county executive committee member for finance to address these questions which they allege are grounds for impeachment here? Mr. Speaker, Sir, our submission is that no summons were issued. Mr. Speaker, Sir, secondly, on the amount they claim was missing, if you go Volume 2 of the Governor’s bundle, they have an explanation there which the County Governor has put for purposes of this The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}