Amos Kimunya blames Kang’ata’s letter on inexperience, attention seeking

National Assembly Majority Leader Amos Kimunya has attributed Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata’s controversial letter to inexperience, further saying the Senate Majority Whip was trying to seek public attention.

Kimunya says there are many ways of advising the President on national or regional matters and that a leaked letter is not the way to do it.

“…partly inexperienced, partly wanting to attract attention and I see probably pressure from his colleagues… Isaac Mwaura is one of his bosom buddies, Alice Wahome was getting a lot of attention after her statement and perhaps he (Kang’ata) thought he should also do something,” said Kimunya.

The House Majority Leader maintains that a sitting Head of State should be advised in person and not in public.

“My experience in government has taught me that you never stand in public or even in the floor of the House and say ‘I would want to tell the President the following’… you should go and tell him in person. I see that mistake in most politicians,” added Kimunya in an interview with Citizen TV.

He further stated that Kang’ata could have channeled his views to the President through the BBI National Secretariat led by Dennis Waweru and Junet Mohamed.

Kimunya accused Kang’ata of injecting negativity into the BBI process and diverting the country’s attention from more urgent matters.

“The fact that he has brought some negativity is call for concern. Had he not written this letter we would have been talking about what do we do with the vaccine or revamping the economy. But we are wasting so much time talking about some misdirected energy by a guy who only wanted publicity,” said Kimunya.

The Murang’a Senator sparked a political fireball after he sent an open letter to President Kenyatta declaring that the BBI was unpopular in the Central Kenya region, which is the Head of State’s political turf.

In the letter, Kang’ata said only two in ten people in Central Kenya support the BBI, a finding he said is based on his own personal survey over the Christmas holiday

He stated that only two out of 10 respondents supported the BBI, two others were indifferent while six opposed it; out of the six, majority were women and youth, men above 50 were listed as among the bulk of few supporters.

While admitting that his survey was not scientific, Kang’ata called for a more structured survey with properly identified respondents, scientific sampling procedures, employment of good research tools and questionnaires, further imploring the President to use his other sources of information to corroborate or counter his conclusion.

Leaders allied to the President have since come out to rubbish the letter and castigate the Senate Majority Whip.

Kang’ata has since apologised over the manner in which the letter went public, saying it was leaked by a third party.

“Kindly though the letter dated 30th December is authentic, I didn’t give it to the media. Someone else who had been copied did. I apologise for that. With the benefit of hindsight. I should have copied no one else. Trust substantive issues raised in the letter will be remedied,” said the Senate Majority Whip on Monday.