Speaker to determine fate of PAC after bribery claims

With MPs resuming sittings on Tuesday, National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi could determine the fate of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) following serious allegations made against it.

Tuesday marks not only the start of the fifth and last session of the current Assembly but the  resumption of committee meetings, meaning the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) gets back to finish work on investigating the scam at the National Youth Service (NYS).

Mr Muturi is expected to determine whether action will be taken on a letter to him by Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen asking him to have the Powers and Privileges Committee investigate allegations that some PAC members took a Sh40-million bribe to protect banks mentioned in NYS scandal.

The letter was written on December 16, after the National Assembly had taken its December break and Mr Muturi did not speak on the subject when the House held special sittings later that month.

Mr Murkomen’s law firm, Sing’oei, Murkomen and Sigei Advocates, had a run-in with PAC after managing partner Hillary Sigei refused to hand over full details of a bank account through which Sh15 million was received from Out of the Box Solutions Limited, a company paid of out of the NYS accounts.

In his letter to Mr Muturi, the senator said he had received information from whistleblowers concerned about PAC’s conduct in the course of doing its job.

He asked Mr Muturi to have the Powers and Privileges Committee investigate PAC members on: whether the chairman and the vice chairman held meetings with any person who had been adversely mentioned in the scandal, the criteria used to determine who would be invited to meet the committee and criteria used to refuse documents or to insist that some are necessary.

Finally, he said in the letter: “Did the chairman, vice chairman and/or any member of the committee meet with any of the banks and was there any alleged payment of Sh40 million shared among some committee members to protect one or more of the banks in the course of investigations?”

START INVESTIGATING PAC

If he decides to have the Power and Privileges Committee start investigating the PAC, the inquiry into the NYS scandal could be slowed down or stopped.

But if Mr Muturi ignores the letter or sets it aside, the decision is unlikely to go down well with those concerned about the alleged improprieties of the committee.

MPs will also be asked to speed up the important business of approving the Budget for the next financial year, which will also include the last batch of funds for the election.

With MPs expected to concentrate more on their re-election campaigns than on legislative matters in the coming months, the last session is expected to be active for only the next two months after it resumes sittings.

The House leadership brought forward the resumption of the National Assembly by 14 days to get more time for the MPs to deal with the budget, which the Treasury hopes can be passed by the end of March.

March will mark the start of a busy period for the MPs as they individually seek re-election and collectively seek votes for their presidential candidates.

With the Elections Act now requiring that the parties nominate candidates at least 60 days and submit lists of their members at least 90 days to the date of the elections, MPs are expected to be away from Parliament.

RESTRICT BORROWING

“Upon resumption from recess, our priority business will be the budget related items,” said Majority Leader Aden Duale as the House prepared to go on its December break last year.

The Budget Policy Statement was approved in December, with MPs approving the decision to restrict borrowing to Sh500 billion rather than the Sh582 billion proposed by the Treasury.

Budget ceilings were also set at Sh36 billion for Parliament, Sh18 billion for the Judiciary and Sh1.468 trillion for the Executive. Counties will get Sh291 billion to share equitably and an additional Sh32.6 billion as conditional allocations.

The National Assembly’s changes are expected to be contained in the budget estimates by the Treasury, which it hopes will be approved, with the appropriate changes by the departmental committees by the end of March.

He said this would also include consideration of pending Bills to implement reforms proposed by the Treasury: the Public Finance Management (Amendment) Bill, the Proceeds of Crime Bill and the Anti-Money Laundering Bill.