House probe team wants Ababu Namwamba’s PAC dissolved

NAIROBI: The National Assembly Powers and Privileges Committee has recommended the dissolution of the House Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and barred its chairperson, Ababu Namwamba, and four others from serving on a new committee to be reconstituted.

The probe committee, which has been investigating graft allegations against PAC members, came out with a stinging verdict on Mr Namwamba and four PAC members, who separately made claims touching on the integrity of the committee.

In its report, the committee wants Namwamba and the four – Cecily Mbarire (Runyenjes), Ahmed Abbas (Ijara), James Bett (Kesses) and Omondi Anyanga (Nyatike) – barred from serving on the new committee whose members will be nominated within seven days of the House considering the report.

All five were at the centre of claims that they received money to alter the outcome of a report that implicated Defence Principal Secretary Mutea Iringo in a matter of cash missing in the Office of the President.

Allegations that PAC members had been receiving favours from subjects they were supposed to investigate also surfaced during the investigations.

INDIA TRIP

The committee made reference to a trip by PAC members to India during which they were said to have received favours from 4G Solutions, a company that was under investigation by the committee.

Claims of bribery made in relation to the confidential expenditure that implicated Iringo will be referred to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission for further investigations, the committee recommended.

The report is particularly harsh on Namwamba, whom it says committed acts of omission and commission that rendered his evidence before the committee null and void. Namwamba's key piece of evidence – tapes he claimed were proof that some of his colleagues were involved in corruption – were dismissed as inadmissible.

The new committee will comprise six former members from the previous committee to allow for continuity.