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A Senate committee has resolved to approach Opposition leader Raila Odinga as part of its plan in resolving the budget standoff in Taita Taveta county pitting Governor Granton Samboja and Members of the County Assembly (MCAs).

The Devolution and Inter-governmental Relations Committee (IGRTC) has also sought the help of Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka and his Ford Kenya counterpart Senator Moses Wetang’ula in mediating the impasse between the county Executive and the Assembly in the approval of the Financial Year 2019/20 budget.

Square one

In an appraisal report tabled in the Senate yesterday, chairman John Kinyua (Laikipia) said they have reached out to IGRTC to come up with strategies to address the deteriorating relationship between Samboja and his MCAs.

“We want the IGRTC to be involved so that we can engage all of them. This is a matter that involves parties.

Therefore, we are also engaging the ODM party leader because majority of the MCAs are from his party,” Kinyua said. “We are involving the party leader in these discussions in a bid to get a speedy solution to the matter.” 

However, Deputy Speaker Kindiki Kithure ordered the committee to rope in Kalonzo in the talks after Kitui Senator Enock Wambua protested saying  the county is formed by a governor elected on a Wiper party ticket, hence the need to have the political outfit leader on the table.

Solve the crisis

“Senator Kinyua, you should be sensitive to political parties,” ruled Kindiki.

Wetang’ula, who is the Bungoma Senator,  also asked his party to be involved in the discussions and help resolve the conflict.

 “The party I lead, Ford Kenya, has MCAs in Taita Taveta including, but not limited, to the Deputy Speaker of the County Assembly. How come, the chairperson of the committee has not found it necessary to talk to the leader of Ford Kenya as well?” posed Wetang’ula.

“You should also consult any other party represented in that assembly. If a party has representation in that assembly, I see no reason why they should not be consulted. It is spiteful of our democracy,” said Kindiki.

Nevertheless, Kinyua said his committee had several meetings with the County Assembly, the executive as well as the relevant Cabinet Secretary.

Square one

However, he said the governor has been adamant that he will proceed with dissolving the county as he had collected 52,000 signatures.

 “The committee has managed to bring both the executive and county assembly to  talking terms. However, every time we try that after we discuss and think we are moving forward, we get ourselves back to square one,” said Kinyua.

The standoff between the governor and MCAs was sparked by Samboja’s decision to counter the insistence by the ward representatives to allocate themselves more than Sh800 million for ward development.

In the past few weeks, a number of 2019/20 budget-related disputes between the governors and MCAs have been recorded, including in Kisumu and Nairobi counties.