Nyamira approves recommendations to sack speaker over fraud claims

By NAFTAL MAKORI

NYAMIRA: Members of Nyamira County Assembly have adopted a report by the Public Accounts and Investments Committee recommending removal of the County’s Speaker Mong’are King’oina over claims of a Sh30 million tender fraud.

The report also recommends the removal of five other officials over the role they allegedly played in the suspicious medical cover tender.

The committee led by Ezra Mochiemo recommended that Speaker Mong’are King’oina who is chairman of the County Assembly Service Board and his Vice Chairman Beauttah Omanga, Acting Clerk Duke Onyari, Principal Finance Officer Nehemiah Nyakundi and senior assistant clerk Peninah Kerama take full responsibility for the alleged fraudulent tender. 

The report further recommended that Sh30 million fraudulently obtained from County Assembly of Nyamira be refunded immediately so that the MCAs can benefit.

The report says the chairman of the County Assembly Service Board needed to take responsibility for leading and guiding a board meeting that approved the award and payment of a fraudulent process.

Mochiemo accused the speaker of allowing a member of staff to participate in the meeting and sign the minutes as the secretary contrary to the law.

Omanga is on the spot for allegedly confirming and signing the minutes of the meeting held on March 25, 2014. Omanga is elected member of Bogichora ward and serves as a Leader of Majority and is likely to lose the position of leader of majority depending on how the matter will develop.

The members of county assembly are now drafting a motion that would effectively remove the speaker from office. The motion is scheduled to be tabled in the house next Tuesday. To remove the speaker from office, it would require a two-thirds majority vote.

The MCAs want those the report finds culpable to be arrested and prosecuted in a court of law.

“This is the time we must stump our authority and bring sanity to not only the county assembly but also the executive,” said Mochiemo. He maintained that those who are culpable must be subjected to due process of law for their misdeeds, commissions and omissions.

Laban Masira of Nyamaiya ward seconded the report and added that the insurance tender was a gross violation of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act, 2005.  

Nominated MCA Fred Menge (TNA) said the named persons lack the constitutional threshold for leadership and integrity and thus they should step aside to allow further investigations.