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{
    "id": 1310559,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1310559/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 1545,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Jacob Ngwele",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "defence which have been put forward and know that, as we sit here today, Kshs70 million has not been accounted for. Mr. Speaker, Sir, they had the obligation and responsibility of calling in the Chief Officer, Finance. They had the opportunity to call in the CECM Finance. They had at their disposal the entire county treasury to come and explain those amounts of money. They have not and for that reason, we do submit that count 1 has been proved. I will swiftly move to the other parts of the count. Count two is on nepotism and related unethical practices. We do submit that this count has been substantiated and proved. This count involved two violations. I will just pick two violations because of the interest of time. One was fraudulent misrepresentation of the Governor’s relatives as a technical team. When the Governor received an invitation to visit China and do a benchmarking on a cancer machine, instead of the Governor sending a technical team - top-notch oncologists or other technical persons, she decided to send a member of the same clique made up of her relatives. Two sisters and one brother. This is the inner team which was sent to China. Mr. Speaker, Sir, if you look at the documents which were presented to the Ministry of Devolution, there was apparent misrepresentation by the county secretary that these are technical officers and the document is there. You have been shown the documents. We do submit that an argument has been raised here that no public funds were lost, but the county assembly states that an opportunity was lost. Those who have done accounting or economics know there is something called opportunity cost – the cost of not doing something. That is the cost which was incurred by the County of Meru and there was that violation of misrepresentation. The letter was addressed to the Governor. The Governor cannot run away, as my colleague, Dr. Muthomi has said and say, “It wasn’t me”. The letter was addressed to her. She minuted it to the officers and officers went ahead and misrepresented those members of the clique as county technical officials. The other violation in this count is the designation of Nephat Kinyua, who is a member of the clique. This is a clique, which had access, power and influence. The clique involved the two sisters and the brothers. It is the one that runs Meru today. In order to reward Nephat Kinyua when he was in a small job group and without a competitive process; and the Governor also admitted in cross-examination that his appointment was not sanctioned by the CPSB, he was appointed as a director, external linkages without a transparent and competitive recruitment process. We do submit that count 2 has also been substantiated and proved. I will move quickly because of the time we have been given. It is so difficult to condense all the evidence which we have been given within the short period of time I have, but I shall try my best. The third count is bullying, vilification and demeaning other leaders. Chapter Six of the Constitution was not made in vain. It operates with other laws. Key principles among them are the Public Officers Ethics Act and the Leadership and Integrity Act. These are the provisions of the law, which the governor violated."
}