Senate issues warrant of arrest against Governor Oparanya

Senate issues warrant of arrest against Governor Oparanya

The Senate Public Accounts Committee now wants the police to arrest Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya after he failed to honour summons over audit queries.

Vice Chair of the committee, Prof. John Lonyangapuo, asked the Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet to arrest Oparanya and deliver him to the Senate by Monday 11:00am.

This is not the first time an arrest warrant has been sought for the Kakamega Governor.

In December 2015, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko  ordered the arrest of Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya for failure to honour Senate summons.

Tobiko directed the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to take Oparanya into custody in response to a complaint filed by the Speaker of the Senate.

In November 2015, the Senate Public Accounts Committee called on the prosecutor’s office to compel Oparanya to appear before the committee after he failed to heed their summons.

Committee Chairman Boni Khalwale said despite three invitations, the governor had declined to appear resulting in summons, which he has also refused to honour and now wants him ‘frog marched’ to Parliament.

Oparanya has previously accused the Senate of a witch-hunt saying he is not an accounting officer and cannot respond to some of their questions.

Oparanya had been summoned by PAC to answer to pending audit queries.

Some of the issues raised by the Auditor General were misappropriation and irregular diversion of county funds, lack of documentation to support spending of county funds and contravention of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act.

“The auditor found that upon entry into office, the Governor of Kakamega took Sh5.2 million being funds for LATF, and went and bought a car for himself and when he was asked to produce log books for this vehicle that he bought, he did not give them. We want to know why he diverted the funds to buy a car for himself,” Khalwale had stated previously.

According to the auditor’s report, there also were no proper records of debtors and no evidence of efforts to recover the lost money totaling over Ksh 10.2 million.

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Oparanya Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya

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