Kiambu Governor William Kabogo risks
being summoned by a Senate committee after he failed to appear before
the senators on Wednesday to answer questions on the use of county
finances.
Mr Kabogo snubbed, for the second time, an
invitation by the County Public Accounts and Investment Committee to
respond to queries raised by the Auditor-General in a report covering
use of Kiambu County finances in the last financial year.
The
committee, chaired by Kakamega Senator Bonny Khalwale, asked the
governor to present himself before it to provide answers to the audit
queries, but he instead sent county executive committee members to
represent him.
REFUSED TO LISTEN
The
senators refused to listen to the executive members, saying the only
accounting official they could take a word from was the governor.
Committee
vice-chairman Hassan Omar criticised the governor, saying Mr Kabogo
should follow the example set by other county bosses who had appeared
before it.
“We do not want to engage in ping-pong or
any confrontation. We asked the governor to come and he should do so.
We find no particular substance in the reasons he has given for not
doing so,” said Mr Omar.
Senators said they had a constitutional backing on the invitations for governors to appear before them.
Busia Senator Amos Wako said a court ruling had cleared the way for the lawmakers to summon governors.
CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY
“We
want to perform our constitutional duty without challenges. On this
issue of appearing before us, the court ruled in favour of senators. The
chairman of the Council of Governors has been appearing before us and
so we expect others to do so too,” said Mr Wako.
Kiambu
County's executive in charge of finance, Mary Nguli, defended the
governor, saying he was ready to tackle outstanding issues arising from
Wednesday’s meet.
“We are willing to be held
accountable. We are ready to address the queries and allow the governor
to address outstanding issues,” said Ms Nguli.
Mr Omar,
chairing the meeting, dismissed the executive’s explanation, saying it
was wrong for the governor to twice skip invitation.
Mr
Kabogo was required to respond to questions on how the billions of
shillings given to the populous county had been used and why there were
audit queries in the report by the auditor.
RUTO HONOURED INVITATION
The
chairman of the Council of Governors, Isaac Ruto, appeared on Tuesday
and was praised by the committee for honouring the invitation although
he earlier refused to do so.
Mr Ruto was questioned on
what he was doing to recover debts amounting to billions of shillings
owed to the county by the national government and by individuals. He
said he had written to the national Treasury to pay the debts.
“The
national government owe us about Sh197 million. We have been pushing
for the money to be paid,” said the Bomet governor, revealing that the
county was now collecting debts at a higher rate than before.
Governors
refused to honour summons last year, saying senators had no power to
interrogate them on how counties were run. A court ruling, however,
allowed them to summon governors.
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