Drama as Trans Nzoia Speaker David Sifuna sent home

Bidii ward MCA Mathews Nyarango (in white tie) and his Tuwan counterpart outside Trans Nzoia Speaker David Sifuna’s office before MCAs broke down the door and seized the mace and later impeached Mr Sifuna, whom they accused of financial mismanagement. PHOTO | CORRESPONDENT |

What you need to know:

  • Speaker locks himself in his office to deny assembly members access to the mace.
  • But MCAs break down the door and seize mace.

A Motion to impeach Trans Nzoia County Assembly Speaker David Sifuna was delayed by more than one hour on Tuesday after he locked himself in his office to deny assembly members access to the mace.

Without the mace, which is the symbol of the authority of the assembly, MCAs could not conduct any business, including debating the Motion to impeach Mr Sifuna.

The speaker, who was to be grilled by the assembly, had intended to serve the deputy clerk with a court order to bar debate on the Motion but MCAs denied a court server the opportunity.

BROKE DOOR

On realising that the plan to serve the court order had failed, Mr Sifuna locked himself in his office with the aim of ensuring that the mace was not available.

However, the ward representatives struggled to break the door to Mr Sifuna’s office.

From 2.30pm, they succeeded in getting into the office at 3.45pm when they seized the mace and marched to the Chambers.

The deputy speaker, Mr David Kapoloman, then presided over the session in which the MCAs voted to impeach Mr Sifuna.

Chepsiro-Kiptoror ward MCA Angeline Too moved the Motion that had eight accusations touching on financial mismanagement, corruption and usurping the powers of the clerk.

“This petition prays that this house removes Mr Sifuna from the position of a Speaker owing to adverse unconstitutional errors he has committed,” said Ms Too.

She said the speaker had erred as the chairman of the disbanded county assembly Public Service Board which hired staff unprocedurally without vetting them as required by law.

Mr Kapoloman ruled that the assembly be turned into a committee of the whole House to give the Speaker a chance to defend himself against the allegations.

The chair of the committee, Ms Betty Kipsongok, gave the serjeant-at-arms 15 minutes to fetch the Speaker from his office to defend himself but by then Mr Sifuna had already left.

“Now that the Speaker has failed to appear before this committee, we leave it to the House to make a ruling on what action should be taken,” said Mrs Kipsongok.