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‘Krimino’ MCA now suspended from work for unethical conduct

February 21st, 2019 3 min read

Nominated Nairobi MCA Mary Njambi, infamous for ‘mafirifiri’ and ‘this is krimino’ sound bites, has been suspended from the Nairobi County Assembly for 10 working days for unethical conduct.

Ms Njambi, together with two other nominated MCAs – Laura Mwende and Nancy Muthami – have been suspended for their roles in the chaos that rocked the City Assembly last year September 10 when Beatrice Elachi was evicted from her office as the Speaker of the Assembly.

The three were suspended by the House after it adopted recommendations of a report by the Assembly’s Powers and Privileges committee that found the conduct of the three members that day as one that intended and is likely to reflect adversely on the dignity and integrity of the county assembly and its members.

In addition, eight other MCAs have been given formal warnings for their conduct on that day. They include majority leader Abdi Guyo, his minority counterpart Elias Otieno, Minority Whip Peter Imwatok, Peter Wahinya, Antony Kiragu, Mwangi Njihia, Redson Otieno and Osman Khalif.

At the same time, nominated MCA Mary Ariviza has been suspended for 21 working days for her conduct during the elections of an acting speaker on September 25 last year when she protested her name being nominated by Mr Imwatok to contest for the position.

UGLY PROTEST

Her protestations on the floor of the House almost turned ‘ugly’ as she fought Assembly orderlies who were escorting her out of the Assembly as she maintained that she was never consulted and her Constitutional right to Association was violated as everyone knew she was “team Elachi”.

The three defended their actions saying that they only became hysterical after Ms Elachi sprayed them with pepper and denied being under the influence of alcohol.

The suspensions mean that the MCAs will forfeit their allowances that come with committee and Assembly sittings. Those suspended for 10 days will miss 10 committee sittings and six Assembly sittings while Ariviza will miss 15 committee sittings and nine Assembly sittings.

“Procedure and practice demand that such members be declared strangers and suspended from county service according to Standing Order 115 of the Assembly. They should withdraw from the precincts of the Assembly and forfeit right to access and allowances payable during such time,” said deputy Speaker Jogn Kamangu after the adoption of the report on Wednesday.

The report tabled in the House by the sectoral committee chair Naftaly Mathenge revealed that the MCAs violated provisions of Standing Order 114 (2) (a) and Section 17 (3) (g) and Section 16 (e) of the County Assemblies Powers and Privileges Act, 2017.

MISCONDUCT

The suspended MCAs have also been ordered to apologise to the Assembly and its members for their misconduct on their return to the Assembly for them to be re-admitted into the House.

The five-month long inquiry revealed that a ‘Kamukunji’ was held before the chaos that preceded the attempted eviction of Ms Elachi from her office but they could not ascertain whether eviction of Elachi was part of the day’s agenda at the informal meeting due to differing statements from the summoned members.

However, despite the adoption of the report, a section of members expressed their displeasure saying that it only targeted the ‘small fish’ and not the ‘ring leaders’.

Highrise MCA Kennedy Oyugi rejected the report calling for the leadership, who were part of the chaos, to also be punished.

“Let us not only punish the weaklings yet we know that they did not lead the troop. They were not the leaders that day. I plead with the House to pardon them,” he said.

Embakasi MCA Michael Ogada, on his part, called for care to be taken while passing such judgments to maintain a united House saying that the MCAs would have been given stern warnings before being suspended.