Keter blames Njee for failed Waiguru motion

Once again, the Solicitor General Njee Muturi’s name has been dragged into the botched attempt to impeach Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru with accusations that he was instrumental in stopping the bid.

The mover of the impeachment motion, Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter, claims Mr Njee and the National Assembly Majority leader Aden Duale acted on instructions from State House to intimidate and even in some cases bribe 17 MPs into withdrawing their support.

This, the MP argued, handed Ms Waiguru a lifeline at a time she has come under immense pressure to quit over the loss of about Sh800 million at the National Youth Service which is under her supervision.

Seventeen MPs opted out of the motion, leaving Mr Keter with 80, which is below the minimum of 88 he needed to initiate a move to send the powerful minister home.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

What angers the likes of Mr Keter is what they call double standards with which President Uhuru Kenyatta is waging the war on graft, having suspended Cabinet Secretaries Charity Ngilu (Lands), Davis Chirchir (Energy), Felix Koskei (Agriculture), Michael Kamau (Transport) and Kambi Kazungu (Labour) seven months ago, yet Ms Waiguru is in the office despite admitting that money has indeed been stolen by junior officers at the ministry.

The five were asked to step aside to allow investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and determination by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions into the various graft allegations hanging around their necks.

But perhaps the message from the Tuesday news, which was undoubtedly received with a huge sigh of relief by Ms Waiguru, is that President Kenyatta has firmly put his foot down that even in the face of the push by both URP MPs and the opposition to sack her, it is a no-no.

There are also indications that Ms Waiguru is a beneficiary of a State House review meeting called by the President to assess the political situation in the country as well as save her from Mr Keter’s noose.

The meeting, which lasted for close to five hours and brought together key Jubilee political players, took place on October 16.

Had he wanted to, then the motion offered the Mr Kenyatta a perfect excuse to offload her from the Cabinet and help deflate the national uproar generated by the theft of funds at the NYS, with new evidence showing that systems could have been highly breached to steal a lot more funds than is in the public domain now.

'BROKER'

Dismissing Mr Keter as a “broker”, Mr Duale is categorical that the MPs who withdrew their signatures acted on their own volition.

“We cannot allow MPs who are out to drive questionable agendas by misusing provisions of the Constitution to intimidate state officers. Ms Waiguru has violated no law and we will defeat any attempt to unfairly target her,” Mr Duale said, adding: “The framers of the Constitution had good intention for some of these laws and so let us not use them to advance power games and extort.”

Accusations of bribery and intimidation have prominently featured in the Waiguru saga with Mr Keter indicating that some of his colleagues could have pocketed as high as Sh1 million each.

“MPs have been intimidated and others threatened. Unfortunately we have lost many of the MPs who had signed the motion, they were promised a million shillings each if they withdrew their signatures. I however want to assure the public that I will not succumb to any of that. I will soldier on,” he told the Sunday Nation.

RUTO ANGER

Mr Muturi could not be reached for comment as repeated calls and texts to his mobile phone were not answered.

A fortnight ago, we reported how Deputy President William Ruto gave a serious dressing-down to URP MPs who had signed in support of the motion and instructed them to write to the National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi that they no longer wanted to send Ms Waiguru home.

Last year, Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi narrated the dramatic turn of events that led to the withdrawal of a similar motion targeting Ms Waiguru.

The MP claimed that the letter withdrawing the motion was drafted by the Solicitor-General after the Presidency became impatient with him over his reluctance to heed the call to withdraw the motion.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s personal aide Jomo Gecaga is then said to have delivered the letter to the National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi on a Wednesday night, just hours to the scheduled debate on the motion.

After signing it, Jomo took it to the Speaker. The question of receiving money does not arise here,” Mr Linturi said.