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Sonko wants MCAs to speed up vetting of five CEC nominees

February 12th, 2019 2 min read

Governor Mike Sonko has appealed to Nairobi MCAs to fast track vetting of five County Executive Members nominees even as the MCAs have warned the executive of sanctions for snubbing committee summons.

Last month, Governor Sonko made changes to his cabinet by bringing in two new faces into the 10-member cabinet and elevating some chief officers into full executives, all who have to be vetted by the Assembly.

This was prompted by the resignation of former Education executive Janet Muthoni Ouko, sackings of Health Services executive Hitan Majevdia and Devolution executive Veska Kangogo; and non-renewal of contracts for former ICT and E-government executive Emmah Muthoni and

The new faces are Dr Stella Bosire, who has been nominated to the Health Services docket, former nominated legislator Sanjeev Birdi, Environment department, Economic Planning chief officer Ms Winfred Kathangu who will now take the helm of the Finance docket, education chief officer Lucia Mulwa who will be vetted to head Education department and Pauline Kahiga-Waititu, current acting County Secretary, for the Public Service docket.

The names are expected to be submitted for vetting by Nairobi County Assembly Appointments committee chaired by the Assembly acting Speaker Chege Mwaura with the names already with the Speaker.

“I want the assembly to fast track the vetting process of the five nominees so that they can start working,” said Sonko while addressing a County Assembly stakeholder’s forum in Nairobi on Tuesday which attracted participation from the Nairobi county assembly ,county executive ,USAID, Agile and Harmonized Assistance for Devolved Institutions (AHADI), UKAid as well as other non-state actors.

At the same time, Assembly Majority Leader Abdi Guyo said that the assembly had resolved to impeach any of the CECs who will snub committee summons.

Mr Guyo decried how the executive committee members were belittling the various committees summoning them raising concern that in the previous session, little or no headway had been made in reviewing audit queries by the Auditor General due to failure by county executives and some chief officers to honor the summons.

He was also concerned that the ward legislators could not access development progress reports on time as a result of the same.

“It is time that we sent some of these executives home for being an impediment to development. I however urge committee members to exercise their oversight powers objectively. As leaders we are only accountable to the electorate and we will not allow errant county executives to hinder us from delivering our pledges to the people,” said Guyo.

In his response, Governor Sonko gave the MCAs the go ahead to deal with the defiant members of his cabinet directing his cabinet and chief officers to honor the committee summons.

He, however, asked members of the committees to also show respect to members of the executive saying that most CECs and chief officers have complained of harassment whenever they appear before the sectoral committees.

“All my officials will honour summons by the assembly, and if they don’t I’m also ready to appear before the assembly’s committees for grilling,” he said.

A report by the County assembly implementation committee in December last year castigated five CECs for their repeated failure to honor committee invitations.