House of graft as MPs jostle to join lucrative committees
Parliament Building.
What you need to know:
- The House transacts its businesses through committees and what goes on there is assumed to reflect its image.
On August 22, 2018, Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka summoned the House Powers and Privileges Committee to discuss the allegations of bribery among a section of senators.
On July 5, 2018, National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi warned MPs against using House committee investigations to cut deals and enrich themselves.
Mr Muturi’s caution came hot on the heels of widespread corruption allegations among the MPs, who were investigating claims of poisonous sugar being smuggled into the country.
There were claims that some MPs had received as little as Sh3,000 to shoot down the poisonous sugar report of the Joint Committee on Agriculture and Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, which had investigated the matter.
In Speaker Muturi’s words, the conduct of the MPs had reduced the investigation into a farce.
“You lost the plot when you engaged in hugging. You went off tangent,” Speaker Muturi told the House.
This was in reference to scenes captured of the joint committee members having hearty chats with some of the witnesses who were appearing before them. It was alleged that the committee members had been compromised to manipulate the findings.
The House transacts its businesses through committees and what goes on there is assumed to reflect its image.
Standing Order 191 of the National Assembly provides that committees shall enjoy and exercise all the powers and privileges as founded in the Constitution and other laws.
Impose fine
This includes the power to summon any person and to enforce their attendance under Article 125 of the Constitution for purposes of giving evidence or providing information.
The same House Rules provide that where a summoned witness does not appear, or appears but fails to satisfy the House or committee, the House or Committee may impose a fine not exceeding Sh500,000.
Speaker Muturi is on record telling committees to stop “pampering” some witnesses appearing before them, including “rogue CSs” and instead notify his office of their truant behaviour through reports so that he can take action. “We need to see committee chairmen begin to flex their muscles at the committee level, but within the law,” Mr Muturi said.
On August 23, 2018, Speaker Muturi expressed his uneasiness with the term “friends of committees” because “it is gaining some other meaning.” According to the Speaker, “these friends are becoming too many. We do not want too many friends of committees.”
Apparently, this loophole in the Standing Orders was affording the MPs an opportunity to attend sessions of other committees where they are not members to peddle influence for cash inducements to influence the outcomes of investigations.
The committees on Energy, Transport, Administration and National Security, Health, Agriculture, Education, Trade and Agriculture are some of those considered “lucrative” and of which MPs would die to be members.
But because the 349 of them cannot be in these committees, some have devised ways where they attend as “friends of the committee”.
On August 22, 2018, Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka summoned the House Powers and Privileges Committee to discuss the allegations of bribery among a section of senators.
The summons came after city businessman Francis Mburu claimed some members of the County Public Accounts and Investments Committee had solicited Sh100 million to write a favourable report on the Ruaraka land scandal.
