Uhuru allies accuse Kositany of trying to bring Jubilee Party down

A group of Jubilee MPs allied to President Uhuru Kenyatta have now trained their guns on party deputy secretary-general Caleb Kositany, accusing him of trying to bring down the party.

Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu and his Cherang’any counterpart Joshua Kutuny told the Saturday Nation that it was hypocritical for the Soy MP to claim that party funds were lost when he is also a party official, and that in case there was truth in what he was alleging then he would also be liable.

Mr Wambugu, a fierce critic of the DP, claimed that the Tangatanga faction was busy tarnishing the image of the party after being outsmarted in its efforts to take control of it.

“Kositany is playing politics with the intention of besmirching the reputation of the ruling party now that the efforts of Tangatanga to take over Jubilee have collapsed so dramatically,” said the Nyeri Town MP.

He added that: “So who exactly is Kositany accusing of being behind the alleged theft? Is it Party Leader, the Deputy Party Leader, the Secretary General Raphael Tuju, himself or the Treasurer? If he was not playing politics with this matter, he would have made the accusations against a specific person because crimes are specific. Otherwise, as deputy secretary-general, he, too, is as culpable.”

THEFT OF MONEY

Mr Kutuny asked the Soy MP to take responsibility in case his claims of theft of money are true rather than what he termed as ‘lamenting in funerals’ over it.

The Cherang’any MP also asked Mr Kositany to report the matter to both the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) instead of politicking with it for the sake of ‘glorifying’ the Tangatanga brigade.

“He has claimed that money was lost in 2018 and, since he has been in office for long as deputy secretary-general of the party, he should take responsibility and, secondly, let him report the theft to relevant authorities by tabling evidence rather than lamenting,” said Mr Kutuny. He addd that Mr Kositany had lost interest in serving the interests of the Jubilee Party and is after destroying it.

He added: “These are people who no longer have the interest of the party at heart and we are telling them that if they are tired of Jubilee, why can’t they pack up and go?”

But the push by the Deputy President William Ruto’s allies for Jubilee Party’s financial records to be made public took a new twist yesterday, with the Tangatanga group threatening to go to court to compel Secretary-General Raphael Tuju to publish the names of the party’s employees and their salaries.

FINANCIAL RECORDS

Mr Kositany, the Jubilee deputy secretary-general and the DP’s de facto spokesperson, told the Nation that they had given Mr Tuju time to furnish them with financial records of the party, failure to which they will “explore all legal avenues” to ensure that the information they want is given out.

“On 22 July, 2020, we wrote to Mr Tuju demanding for him to provide us with information on the assets of the party, copies of leases for the headquarters as well as county offices, a list of all employees and the party wage bill, minutes of audit and finance committees and procurement records, failure to which we will move to court to have all these matters sorted out,” said Mr Kositany, who is also Soy MP.

The vocal lawmaker said there was no way the party would continue using a huge chunk of party funds without contributors knowing their employees noting that the party staff should be drawn from different parts of the country.

“Jubilee Party cannot be run as a private entity where we do not know who are the employees because those need to come from the counties," said Mr Kositany.

Mr Kositany on Friday last week claimed that the ruling party cannot be broke when over Sh1.3 billion could not be accounted for.

The Soy MP said he should not be intimidated for asking what he termed as ‘truth and transparency’ in the ruling party.

“When I ask something, I am not just asking like a party member but as an MP and party official because over Sh1.3 billion cannot be accounted for, according to the Auditor General’s report we have,” claimed Mr Kositany without providing evidence.