Kiambu MCAs asks County speaker to resign or risk being impeached
A day after being allowed into the Kiambu County Assembly precincts, a section of MCAs have given Speaker Stephen Ndicho 24 hours to resign voluntarily failure to which they will impeach him forthwith.
The ward representatives accuse Ndicho of usurping their constitutional roles and powers thereby crippling their oversight duties.
They also accused him of alleged embezzlement of public funds and abuse of office as well as running the affairs of the assembly like his personal enterprise.
"We call for the immediate resignation of the StephenNdicho within 24 hours, failure to which we shall invoke our powers under section 11 of the County Government Act and impeach him", Gideon Gachara who is the Assembly's Leader of Majority said.
Flanked by the Chief Whip Simon Wakarema and a host of aggrieved MCAs, Gachara also called on the offices of the DCI, EACC and the Auditor General to move in and conduct thorough investigations on probable plunder of the public resources at the assembly.
"To safeguard the taxpayers' hard-earned taxes and public resources in general, we also call upon the National Treasury together with the Controller of Budget to swiftly inquire how the assembly has been operating with a clerk who is yet to be vetted", Gachara said.
Ndicho is also accused of initiating the construction of a Chapel within the assembly, without a budget and prior planning as required by law.
The speaker has been at loggerheads with a section of MCAs for the better part of this year, a tiff that culminated in the suspension of 14 ward reps over alleged misconduct and breaching of Standing Orders.
The suspended lawmakers have since been reinstated by the High Court pending the hearing and determination of an interpreted case they filled after suspension.
Contacted soon after he suspended the civic leaders, Ndicho said, 'Leaders can't behave like our secondary school children who have burnt over 100 schools in recent days".
He added: "These MCAs came with crude weapons and threatened me and other officers and members of the Board. If deterrent action isn't taken against them, won't they come next time with petrol and burn the Assembly? What would stop them if disciplinary action is not taken so as to set a good example to others".
'The sanctity, dignity, honour and respect of the Assembly must be maintained and the Speaker is the custodian of Law and Order in the Assembly as prescribed in the law, Constitution and our own Standing Orders," the speaker further said.
Efforts to reach him to get his reaction to the ultimatum by MCAs were futile.
