MPs want absent ministers sanctioned

Backbenchers have proposed sanctions for ministers and their assistants who fail to show up in Parliament to answer questions.

The MPs have asked the powerful Speaker’s Committee to meet and rule that absentee ministers will lose their allowances.

Those who show up late will also not earn the sitting allowance that all MPs get for being in the House. MPs, including ministers and their assistants, are paid Sh5,000 per sitting, and if they attend all sittings, each of the lawmakers make Sh20,000.

The proposals came as MPs lamented that ministers and their assistants had made it a habit of skipping House sittings without any reason; and that the government had become immune to the incessant complaints from the backbench about absenteeism of the frontbench in the debating chamber.

Aden Duale (Dujis), Charles Kilonzo (Yatta), Ekwee Ethuro (Turkana Central), John Mututho (Naivasha) and Gitobu Imanyara (Imenti Central) were angry that neither Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, who is the Leader of Government Business, and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is the supervisor and coordinator of government functions, were in the House to explain the absence of ministers.

“We want action taken, even if it means having the Speaker (Kenneth Marende) writing to the Head of State (to tell him our displeasure about the performance of ministers),” said Mr Duale.

Shirk responsibility

Both the Vice President and the PM have two deputies and none of the deputies was in the House at that time.

Transport minister Amos Kimunya, who is the Deputy Leader of Government Business, came to the House late, apologised to the MPs and said that he and some of the ministers who missed the sittings, were in the funeral committee making arrangements for the send-off of their colleagues who died on Sunday in a helicopter crash.

That explanation had been given earlier by Special Programmes minister Esther Murugi, but MPs rejected it saying the frontbench had no business using a national tragedy, on the third day of mourning, to shirk responsibility.

Charles Keter (Belgut) told the House that he’d just seen David Musila, the assistant minister of Defence “having tea at the lobby”, yet a question to his Ministry had been set aside in the House.

When Calist Mwatela, the education assistant minister, who was holding brief for the Leader of Government Business, went to the lobby to get Mr Musila, he returned saying that he’d not found him.

Mr Keter stood by his words, and had witnesses in Sammy Mwaita (Baringo Central) and Peris Simam (Eldoret South) all who nodded their heads in agreement that they had just shared a cup of tea with Mr Musila.

Temporary Deputy Speaker Joyce Laboso said the Speaker will rule on the matter of absentee ministers.