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"content": "Let us look at page 25 of our response in Volume II, I will go very quickly because of time. Evidence was adduced yesterday that, indeed, most of these Bills and nearly all the Bills are now law. The process of a legislation coming into force is contained in Section 24 of the County Governments Act. Therefore, whether the Governor assents to it or not, it will become a law automatically. Secondly, most of these Bills were generated by the executive. I do not want to go into those issues because we discussed them yesterday and put our position. What is, again, new is that there are eight other statutes which were assented to by the governor. There is a reason why for instance some of these legislations were not assented to by the governor. These are reasons which, sometimes, the county assembly does not want to consider. For example, there is the issue of the Tea Cess Bill, which is one of the documents here. The President said in the agricultural sector we are abolishing the tea cess because we do not want to burden some farmers. We do not want to create an extra weight in form of taxation. Therefore, the Agriculture and Food Authority was set up and county governments, by virtue of that directive, are not supposed to collect cess. Yet, the County Government of Nyeri then passes the Tea Cess Bill, authorising something that contravenes the national government policy. Then there is a problem. How can one say that the governor failed to assent to legislation, yet there is an underlying reason those legislations ought not to exist in the first place? There is some rationale and reason. However, for purposes of impeachment, there is no gross violation of Section 24 of the County Governments Act, because it is not capable of being violated; there is a mechanism. If the governor does not take action, the next stage accrues. Mr. Speaker, Sir, at page27 of our response – Volume II - there is a charge known as ‘failure to comply with the law.’ There are three charges. This is critical because it goes to the root of constitutional compliance. In impeachment proceedings, the Constitution is key. Under Section 181 of the Constitution there is no such charge as ‘failure to comply with the law.’ It is either ‘gross violation of law’, ‘gross violation of the Constitution’, ‘gross misconduct’ or ‘abuse of office.’ How can the county assembly design a charge that does not exist in the Constitution? On that issue alone, the Senate ought to dismiss that charge and make a finding that, first of all, it does not exist. You have jurisdiction, in accordance with Section 2 of the Constitution to make that finding, when you are upholding the Constitution. This is a House of honour; not a House where you bring frivolous charges which are not anchored in law. On page 28 the allegation is that the governor has not remitted statutory deductions. Who is complaining that the county government has not remitted statutory deductions? Yesterday, the governor said that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) – and we have evidence here which if allowed, I will submit - feted the County Government of Nyeri for having paid taxes lawfully and in accordance with the timelines set. How can they say that there is a violation? Is the KRA complaining? Is the NHIF complaining? Is the NSSF complaining? The evidence that was submitted here is that there are certain deductions to political parties, that is, TNA and GNU. The county assembly produced evidence before this committee to demonstrate that the county governor has not submitted the statutory contributions. This is completely wrong; we cannot do impeachment like this. On page 689; Volume III of the county assembly documents has a letter that was submitted as evidence of the allegation, which we are saying does not exist in the first place. The letter is dated 21st September, 2016 and addressed to 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."
}