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"id": 695089,
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"content": "Mr. Speaker, Sir, there was an issue that was raised by the governor; that these matters were not brought to his attention. I do not wish to take the Senate through the entire documents that we have submitted, but you will notice that one of the documents, at page 695 of Volume III, of the documents submitted by the assembly, is in fact a resolution that was forwarded to the governor way back in June this year, recommending that the county secretary be relieved of her duties. That resolution was made under Section 40 of the County Governments Act, but it was ignored. We have not heard any comment regarding the Bills that were forwarded to the governor. I heard him say: “If these matters were brought to his attention.” You will see from our documents that these documents were sent. Sen. Wako said that the fact that those Bills can operationalize themselves, does not take away the mischief. It does not cure the illegality of a governor who intentionally refuses to assent to them, under Section 24 and 30 of the County Governments Act. There must be a reason these sections are there. One of the grounds upon which a governor can be impeached from office, is intentional violation of the law. So that, when there is no explanation why these Bills were not rejected or a memoranda sent, then one can only conclude that the action of this person was actually deliberate and intentional and, therefore, a contravention of the law. There is the issue of the court cases that the governor alluded to; that the reason these positions have not been filled substantively is because there are court cases pending. First of all, we have not been told which court cases these are. One of the things that we heard in the morning from one of the witnesses is that in the department of finance, since the inauguration of the county government, there has not been a chief officer. The reason, therefore, could not have been that someone went to court, because there has never been a substantive chief officer. There is a pending court case, and I will give the particulars because it is a public document. There is a Petition No.9 of 2016 filed in the High Court, Nyeri, which is a culmination of summons that were issued to CECs who declined to honour invitations to appear. Because under the Privileges Act it is an offence, when the assembly sought assistance from the Director of Public Prosecutions to charge these CECs, they filed a constitutional reference. The governor is the Chief Executive Officer of the County and heads the county executive. Under his watch, he sees county executive officers going to court to be shielded from accountability and honouring summons to go and explain. Today, we are being told that he did not know about this. That cannot be a serious submission. The other point is on the right to be heard. I like the passion and the fervency with which the governor has appeared before the Senate. I wish this was the same passion he demonstrated before the assembly. What we have is a notice that was served on him personally, but because he has absolutely no regard for the assembly, he perhaps thought that he is, with due respect, so important a person that he should not appear to be presenting himself in person before the assembly. Now, he wants this Senate to believe that he was deprived of a chance to be heard. That cannot be a serious submission. Lastly, there has been an admission that we have a county executive that, in fact, has not met the gender parity requirements under the Constitution. Article 175 is so express; that the county executive shall not consist of more than two-thirds of the same gender. These acting appointments were made personally by the governor. Therefore, he knew the gender of these persons. The governor knows very clearly that the Constitution says that this body must, as a 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."
}