MPs brawl over sacking of Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission officials

NAIROBI: A heated exchange between two MPs capped an acrimonious sitting of the National Assembly's Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, which dramatically rescinded its earlier decision and recommended the removal of two senior anti-graft officials.

 

During the meeting, presided over by the Vice Chairperson Priscillah Nyokabi, the MPs said the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chairman Mumo Matemu and his deputy Irene Keino must be sacked so as not to jeopardise the fight against corruption.

A third EACC commissioner, Jane Onsongo, had resigned under controversial circumstances.

During the tense meeting at Parliament Buildings, the team's chairman Samuel Chepkonga reportedly exchanged words with MP Peter Kaluma who had criticised the Jubilee lawmakers in the committee for changing their minds.

"Kaluma told the Jubilee MPs that they had changed their minds because of the visit they made last Wednesday to State House, but Chepkonga asked him: 'When you go to meet Raila who asks you? Do we say that your decisions here are because of the meeting'?" said an MP who was in the meeting but did not wish to be named.

It is at that point that Kaluma is said to have shot up and challenged Chepkonga.

"Chepkonga kept telling him that he cannot be policing MPs, and trying to tie the decisions they make to the people they meet.  He said MPs are at liberty to meet anyone, at any time, on any matter," said the MP.

MPs struggled to separate the two, and journalists who were outside the room of the closed-door meeting heard Nyokabi shouting and pleading with MPs to observe decorum. "Order members! Order! Order..." Nyokabi could be heard shouting.

The shouting from inside the room continued and at one point a female parliamentary orderly who was manning the meeting stormed out in distress, and rushed to the office of the Chief Sergeant-at-Arms to get help.

"Things are very bad. People are fighting. Please come and help me," she was overheard telling one of her colleagues. More orderlies then rushed in only to find the meeting in an uproar.

Another MP claimed the two were actually in a "scuffle" and that it is David Ochieng' (Ugenya) who told Chepkonga to sit down.

When the meeting ended, Kaluma and Chepkonga were seen in the corridors hugging and talking. Chepkonga said they were discussing the Fair Administrative Action Bill and denied that there was a scuffle between them.

"If these were two people who had just exchanged the blows, why then would they be talking two minutes later? It was just a heated exchange. He shot up, I shot up. And the other members were telling us to sit down," said Chepkonga.

Chepkonga insisted that they were on opposite sides of the table and there was no contact, but other MPs in the meeting disputed this.

"Who fought? How? No!" said Kaluma.

Kaluma didn't want MPs to change the initial report, which was set for adoption and which recommended that the petition be dismissed and the EACC bosses be retained.

The committee depended on Onsongo's resignation letter describing the commission as dysfunctional, and also the report of the Commission on Administrative Justice.