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Kenya: Fury as Speaker Blocks Report on Kimunya
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The Nation (Nairobi)
7 August 2008
Posted to the web 8 August 2008
Bernard Namunane
Nairobi
Furious MPs protested as the Speaker Thursday blocked a damning report into the conduct of former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya.
They claimed the Speaker's refusal to allow the report, into the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel, to be tabled amounted to sabotage.
It is understood the report demands that Mr Kimunya should be sacked over the controversial sale of the hotel.
MPs who drew up the report say President Kibaki should be told that Mr Kimunya is unfit to return to the Cabinet and that he should be severely reprimanded.
Not compatible
His conduct over the sale should be referred to the House Powers and Privileges Committee for action, says the Okemo committee set up to look into the sale, according to sources familiar with the report.
They quoted the report and said it concluded: "That the appointing authority be advised that the conduct of Mr Kimunya is not compatible with that of a Cabinet minister."
Parliament last night went on recess until October 7 and, therefore, the report cannot be tabled before then.
Mr Kimunya was forced to step aside last month to allow investigations into the Grand Regency sale after Parliament passed a vote of no confidence in him.
Another investigation into the sale is being conducted by former Chief Justice Abdul Majid Cockar.
Leading protests over the aborted attempt to table the report, was Joint Government Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo, a member of the Parliamentary committee on Finance and Trade.
He spoke of subversion on the Government side and accused deputy Speaker Farah Maalim of stopping the tabling of the report before MPs. "This is a very brave statement.. There is somebody attempting to subvert the work of the Finance committee and if they will not allow it to be tabled, I will call a press conference next Tuesday and read the report publicly," he said.
He was speaking just a few hours after being thrown out of the House for questioning Mr Maalim's ruling against tabling of the committee's findings.
But as he spoke, it emerged that the committee wants Kipipiri MP Amos Kimunya barred from holding any ministerial position.
False information
In a tough indictment of the former Finance minister, the committee proposed that he should be thoroughly reprimanded and be referred to the powerful committee of Parliament -- the Powers and Privileges Committee.
Sources privy to the report said the committee found that Mr Kimunya withheld material facts and gave false information to the committee when he first appeared before it on May 21, when he stated that the hotel had not been sold.
But it is said the Kipipiri MP clarified that he meant selling the hotel to another company -- Meridian Arab African Company, and not the Libyan African Investments Company.
The Kipipiri MP is also said to have failed to provide the committee with a confidential brief on Grand Regency that was submitted to him by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Njuguna Ndung'u.
Sources said the report indicated that Mr Kimunya presented himself as a mere messenger who was not at the centre of the controversial sale, yet if fell under his docket and in spite of giving Parliament an undertaking that he would ensure that proper procedures were followed.
The MP is understood to have told the committee that the Treasury was not involved in the sale since it was a transaction that was conducted by the CBK, Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) and Uhuru Highway Development Ltd -- owners of the hotel at the time.
He is also said to have stated that he was not a signatory to the memorandum of understanding between the Governments of Kenya and Libya, where interest in buying the hotel was first declared.
The sources say that the report proposes that Prof Ndung'u should be chastised for the role he played in the entire transaction.
This punishment, it is said, is derived from the failure by the CBK governor to disclose before the committee that a 10 per cent deposit ($4.5 million or Sh290 million) had been paid by the Libya African Company towards the purchase of the five-star hotel.
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Prof Ndung'u, it is understood, also failed to provide evidence that he consulted Attorney General Amos Wako, the KACC and the Treasury during the transaction.
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