Oparanya accuses Khalwale of pushing for his arrest

Oparanya accuses Khalwale of pushing for his arrest

Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya has criticized Senator Bonny Khalwale for what he terms as inciting the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to issue a warrant of arrest against him for failing to honour the committee summons.

Speaking during a burial ceremony on Saturday, Oparanya said that Khalwale, despite being a member, cannot compel the House Committee to summon him afresh.

He went ahead to discredit Khalwale’s financial skills saying that he is not ‘qualified enough’ to be a member of PAC.

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.

Last week, the High Court barred the Senate from taking any action against Oparanya until a case he has filed challenging the Senate’s decision is ruled on come August 17th, 2016.

In his ruling, Justice George Odunga said the Senate should not summon Governor Oparanya while the Police should not arrest him until a judgement is delivered.

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

This was after Senate’s PAC called on the prosecutor’s office to compel Oparanya to appear before the committee after he failed to heed their summons.

Committee Chairman Bonny Khalwale said despite three invitations, the Governor had declined to appear resulting in summons.

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.

Meanwhile, Oparanya has lashed out at a section of Luhya MPs, among them Malulu Injendi (Malava), Ben Washiali (Mumias East), Ayub Savula (Lugari) and Emmanuel Wangwe (Navakholo) accusing them of working with Jubilee to divide the Luhya community ahead of 2017 polls.

Tags:

Auditor General PAC senate Arrest Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko misappropriation audit queries failing to honour summons irregular diversion of county funds Kakamega County Governor Wycliffe Oparanya Senator Bonny Kwalwale

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