Senators have threatened to summon the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) top officials to explain why corruption charges against governors take so long to conclude. 

This is after the Senate County Public Accounts Committee raised concerns over the arrests of various governors taken to EACC headquarters then the matters drag for very long without being concluded. 

The lawmakers wondered why the anti-graft body has been raiding homes of suspects, carting away documents and cash in the most dramatic way, then the case either fails to start or if it starts, takes years before conviction. 

The plot to have EACC summoned came after Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna raised a concern on how the commission has acted in the recent past. 

“We would like to see all the governors whose homes have been raided by EACC and taken for questioning charged and jailed if found guilty to serve as a lesson to others and not a political weapon to threaten critics,” Sifuna said. 

He went on: “We all live in Kenya and know what is happening, it is very wrong to raid a private home, ransack it and arrest the owner, take him to EACC over alleged corruption allegations and the matter drags on for several years without conclusion.” 

In the recent past, EACC has raided the homes of Governors George Natembeya (Trans Nzoia), Kimani Wamatangi (Kiambu), Mahmoud Ali (Marsabit) and Jeremiah Lomurukai (Turkana) and their matters have not been concluded. 

The Committee Chairperson Moses Kajwang’ (Homa Bay) said they were concerned that since Governor Mahmoud was arrested by EACC ostensibly over recommendation made by the Senate Committee last year, he has not been charged in court with the matter still under investigation one year later. 

“It is not our mandate to advise EACC on how to do its work. But we are concerned that the Governor was arrested in April last year, and he has not been charged in court till today. EACC might be used to settle political scores, yet it is an independent body that is supposed to deal with corruption cases both in the National and County Governments across the country,” Kajwang said. 

Nakuru Town West MP Samwel Arama has queried the manner in which security agencies were arresting suspects, particularly elected leaders, activists and those holding key positions who some have ended up dead. He said that the dramas which were being exhibited when effecting the arrests were primitive ways which were practised during the one-party rule. 

Arama said that elected leaders or senior officers implicated in crime should be summoned to appear before the investigators instead of the investigators creating dramas during with the intention of humiliating and embarrassing them. 

“This culture where EACC and DCI officers, when arresting leaders who are merely suspects before they are condemned, must stop, as it was only creating unnecessary tensions and animosity,” Arama told People Daily. 

He revisited the manner in which police officers raided the home of Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya, terming it a sham as it was intimidating, humiliating and harassing the governor politically.