PAC chair Gumbo differs with Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga over war on graft

The Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has denied that lawmakers were being influenced by Jubilee or Cord to derail the fight against corruption.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga had on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, accused the watchdog committee of lack of bipartisanship in its work.

While Mr Kenyatta said that the committee was being used by the opposition to settle scores, Mr Odinga said the team cowed from taking the government’s bull by the horns in demand for accountability.
On Wednesday, committee chairman Nicholas Gumbo said his team was only answerable to the people, but supported a call by Mr Odinga to have the opposition dominate the committee.

“Claims that we are siding with any party are far from the point. It is not about which party, it is about the people of Kenya,” said Mr Gumbo at the sidelines of a four-day meeting.

The meeting of the Africa Organisation of Public Accounts Committees at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, was opened by President Kenyatta on Monday and was addressed by Mr Odinga on Tuesday.

“You should be accountable to the people and not to your political parties. You know what I am driving at,” the President said.

Mr Odinga said: “Parliament has not fully exercised its mandate as a guardian of sanctity of public finances.”

Mr Gumbo suggested that because the committee called senior government officials before it, that may “partially’ be construed to mean the team was being used by the opposition.

Meanwhile, the Africa wide organisation raised the red flag on what it said were deliberate plans by multinationals to impoverish the continent through tax evasion and money laundering.

This was costing the continent up to about Sh5 trillion every year that also came from other dubious ways like transfer pricing. The committee members said that time had come to put a stop to this.