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"id": 938856,
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Sen. Wamatangi",
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"legal_name": "Paul Kimani Wamatangi",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. First, I want to allude to the fact that this House was seized of this matter even before it became a court struggle. In the last session of the Senate, in defining what the functions of a deputy governor should be, we attempted to come up with legislations. You will remember that you were the Senate Majority Leader then. However, that law never saw the light of day. I wish that was done because this would have been dealt with here. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, the point I want to make here is that, in my view, the presumed vacuum in law does not exist. The law has addressed itself to all those questions, including the question you were asking Sen. M. Kajwang’, on absence and vacancy. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, because Kiambu is one of the counties that is affected by this matter, it is important to clarify. To my mind, it is clear that when a governor is facing charges, or when there is doubt on the conduct of a governor, it is in order for a governor to be charged in a court of law, and that cannot be prevented by all means. Therefore, once the governor is charged, the process of how the court determines the guilt or innocence of that person must be followed to its finality. However, the point I want to make, with the volumes that you were asking, is on those two issues that you asked. On the question of absence and presence, first, the question of the absence of the governor is addressed in Article 179(5), where the law says that - “When the county governor is absent, the deputy governor shall act the county governor.” In reply to that particular provision, the law has expressed itself on what happens then, in Section 32 of the County Governments Act. The law has defined precisely what should happen, and that is why I think that the remedy or the mischief that the Motion was trying cure would be, probably, be best cured by an amendment of the law. This is because Section 32(4) of the County Governments Act says that:- “When acting in office as contemplated in Article 179(5) of the Constitution, the deputy governor shall not exercise any powers of the governor, to nominate, appoint or dismiss, that are assigned to the governor under the Constitution or other written law.”"
}