Bribery allegations have emerged at the Nairobi County Assembly amid a push by ward representatives to reinstate over 100 suspended employees.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday last week, the assembly urged all employees and executives suspended by Governor Mike Sonko \u2013 but who are still on full pay and not embroiled in graft allegations \u2013 to resume duty in a bid to forestall the collapse of service delivery.It is claimed that some of the suspended officers\u00a0\u2013 specifically from the department of Urban Planning \u2013 had bribed the MCAs thus prompting the spirited fight to have them resume duty.This was revealed by Speaker Beatrice Elachi during last week\u2019s special sitting that had been convened by the MCAs to discuss county matters in light of the leadership vacuum created following Sonko\u2019s prosecution last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy office is perturbed by unfounded allegations that officers from the Planning department have raised money to bribe a section of the members, including the Office of the Speaker, in order to influence their return to office,\u201d said Ms Elachi.The speaker then accused an MCA who was a former chairman of a House committee being behind the allegations.\u201cThis is an allegation that this House\u00a0\u2013 let alone the Office of the Speaker \u2013 cannot take lightly. As such, if there is any member with such information, they should provide it to the relevant State agencies, in particular the Directorate of Criminal investigations or the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to take up this matter to unravel the truth,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Elachi also noted that by pushing for the return of the suspended officials, the MCAs were \u201cpractising their mandate to legislate for the county government and to exercise oversight over the county executive committee and any of its organs.\u201dPrior to Thursday\u2019s meeting, divisions had played out among the 122 MCAs, who seemed to be singing a different tune from what they had stated in a joint statement released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
During that\u00a0kamukunji<\/span>, all the MCAs and the speaker closed ranks and issued a statement supporting the war on corruption.They also resolved that the suspended workers should resume their duties within two weeks.But the following day, two camps emerged with divergent views.Ward reps led by Imara Daima MCA Kennedy Obuya said the statement issued by Elachi was \u201crushed\u201d. Mr Obuya also claimed he had advised the speaker to wait before making the pronouncement.<\/p>\n Warned speaker<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe respect the fight by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga thus we cannot allow people suspended on corruption allegations to return to office. We had warned the speaker against making the pronouncement but she ignored us,\u201d said Obuya.<\/p>\n Another camp led by Majority Leader Charles Thuo said they wished to clarify Elachi\u2019s statement. Mr Thuo stressed that members were calling for the reinstatement of only those suspended officials who did not have court cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bribery allegations have emerged at the Nairobi County Assembly amid a push by ward representatives to reinstate over 100 suspended employees. On Tuesday last week, the assembly urged all employees and executives suspended by Governor Mike Sonko \u2013 but who are still on full pay and not embroiled in graft allegations \u2013 to resume duty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12],"tags":[427,426],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-beatrice-elachi","tag-nairobi-county-assembly"],"yoast_head":"\n