Alarm Over Impeachment of Governors

Senate Majority Leader Kithure Kindiki has hinted that he will draft a bill that will raise the threshold for impeaching governors.

This he says is to avoid unjustified and an unnecessary removal of governors by MCAs.

Kindiki argues that it should be difficult to impeach a governor, the same way it is difficult to remove a member of parliament now.

“We need to set the standards high, if it is difficult to impeach a member of parliament, why should it be easy to impeach a governor?” asked Kindiki.

If enacted, the proposed bill will make it mandatory for people in the county to have a say in the removal of the governor before the matter is considered by the Senate.

This came even as governors raised an alarm over the ‘easy impeachments of governors’.

The Council of Governors in a statement read by its chairman Isaack Ruto expressed concern over the impeachments.

Ruto said it was unfortunate that the grounds for the removal of governors do not meet the required legal and constitutional threshold.

Citing a court ruling, Ruto said most of the grounds on which governors are being impeached are baseless.

He said MCAs should always adhere to the court ruling which said “removal of a governor is a serious matter that requires the governor to be personally involved in the allegations leveled against him”.

‘A governor should not be removed merely because he is CEO of a county” Ruto said.

He therefore appealed to the Senate not to impeach a governor on grounds of allegations.

The Council of Governors issued the statement just a day after Prof Paul Chepkwony was impeached by the members of the County Assembly of Kericho.

Chepkwony became the second Governor to be shown the door after Embu’s Martin Wambora.

Wambora has however received a lifeline after he moved to court Thursday morning and court set aside his impeachment until after the case he has filed is heard and determined.

By Daniel Korir