Kivutha Kibwana faces toughest test in his fight with county leaders

It appears to be a return to the trenches for Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana. The battle lines were drawn on Tuesday when the Makueni County Assembly turned into a war zone.

Prof Kibwana, who made his name as a campaigner for constitutional and political reforms during the Kanu regime in the 1990s, is this time pitted against the Makueni County Assembly in a battle he says is to free more resources for development from a “rogue assembly” which wants more than their fair share of the limited funds.

But the governor is aware that it will not be an easy task as he admitted during an interview in his office shortly after the Tuesday incident that saw five people including his bodyguard hospitalised with gunshot wounds.

The governor is faced with a young energetic brigade as was evident during an encounter with Mbooni MP Kisoi Munyao on NTV.

His rivals seem aware of his credentials on the political battle front. County assembly Majority Leader Francis Munyao dismissed the governor’s leadership as “activist”.

“Questions to do with corruption and ineptitude cannot be answered by organising hooligans to storm the county assembly. The governor is simply an activist,” he said.

Mr Munyao accused the governor of failing to account for Sh40 million set aside for boda boda operators, Sh70 million for fruit processing and Sh40 million for emergencies.

He added that Sh1.3 billion for development had not been accounted for while the contractors had not been paid.

He declared war on the governor’s close allies and said the assembly would start by impeaching finance executive Alidan Mbinda and agriculture executive Ruth Kyatha for failing to account for how they spent funds. The threat was real and the two were impeached on Tuesday.

MOVE TO COURT

Prof Kibwana says they will challenge the move in court. He does not have kind words for the county assembly leadership, particularly the Majority Leader and Speaker.

He says Speaker Stephen Ngelo is a Jubilee project supported by URP and that is why he wants to paralyse the operations of the County Assembly. “The speaker is URP, we see the hand of Ruto in what is happening in Makueni,” said Prof Kibwana.

About the majority leader, the governor says he is the one who gave the order for security guards to shoot him.

He links the Makueni chaos to a wider scheme to defeat the Pesa Mashinani initiative by governors pushing for a referendum, adding Makueni and Machakos counties are targeted to achieve the goal.

While the MCAs accuse the governor of misappropriation of funds, he argues his woes are as a result of a law recently passed by the Senate and National Assembly putting a ceiling on the amount of money that can be allocated to county assemblies. Prof Kibwana says the MCAs want Sh913 million instead of the Sh356 million set in the ceiling.

Whether he wins the battle or not remains to be seen given the assembly’s power to impeach, which hangs upon the neck of governors across the country like the sword of Damocles.