Speaker: Executives not allowed on trips abroad

What you need to know:

  • Speaking in Wote Town at a hearing of the commission investigating a petition to suspend the county government, Mr Ngelu ruled out taking technical staff from the executive on trips abroad with legislators and assembly leaders.
  • He said it was standard practice for assemblies to take their members on trips without involving the executive unless there was need to collaborate.
  • The September 23 rally that targeted all area elected leaders except Governor Kibwana ended in a gun drama after assembly guards resisted an attempt by a section of riotous residents to enter the venue.

Executives will no longer be allowed to go on assembly foreign trips, Makueni Speaker Stephen Ngelu said on Friday.

Speaking in Wote Town at a hearing of the commission investigating a petition to suspend the county government, Mr Ngelu ruled out taking technical staff from the executive on trips abroad with legislators and assembly leaders.

“The assembly has no funds to sponsor foreign trips for the executive,” he told the commission chaired by Mr Mohammed Nyaoga.

However, Mr Wilfred Nyamu, the lawyer representing Governor Kivutha Kibwana and the executive, said involving technical people on foreign trips would make it easy to duplicate the ideas learned back to the county.

But Mr Ngelu insisted that the assembly would carry out its duties independently, saying taking technical staff on foreign trips would be “misappropriation of funds.”

STANDARD

He said it was standard practice for assemblies to take their members on trips without involving the executive unless there was need to collaborate.
Asked by Mr Nyamu whether the assembly had tried to ask for collaboration with the executive, he said: “We cannot request. How can we request? We would be overstepping our mandate.”

Instead, he said when assembly members and leaders return from trips, they compile reports and give them to the executive for implementation.
Mr Ngelu was appearing before the commission for the second day.

Mr Nyamu will continue cross-examining him on Wednesday when the commission resumes sittings.

On Thursday, he said that he commanded the police to action last year at a rally at the assembly that had gone wild.

The September 23 rally that targeted all area elected leaders except Governor Kibwana ended in a gun drama after assembly guards resisted an attempt by a section of riotous residents to enter the venue.

Six people among them Mr Kibwana’s personal assistant Mr Douglas Mbilu and his body guard sustained gunshot wounds.

And according to the speaker, security agents who had succeeded in repulsing the protestors in the morning section of the melee, relaxed in the afternoon, prompting his command.

“We could not watch and wait to be butchered alive by the charging crowd,” said Mr Ngelu.