County boss ‘created new offices illegally’

Embu Governor Martin Wambora created illegal offices and appointed individuals to fill them without the approval of the county’s legislative body, a committee hearing his impeachment request was told on Tuesday.

The County Assembly said Mr Wambora created 28 offices not provided for by the law and without involving the Assembly.

“There was an advertisement to fill not less than 33 positions. Only five of those did not require the approval of the Assembly but the county government went ahead to fill them against the law,” said the Embu Assembly’s lawyer George Mbugua.

UNLAWFUL PROCESS

Although the recruitment was conducted by the Embu County Public Service Board, the lawyer said the governor ought not to have allowed the appointment to go on because the process was not lawful.

“You seek to recruit to fill an office in existence. You do not recruit to fill a non-existing office. He allowed creation of offices without following the law. The buck stops with the governor. He must take responsibility for failing to act,” Mr Mbugua said when he delved into the accusations made against the Mr Wambora by the Assembly.

The governor’s defence team disputed the accusation saying the governor should not be charged for the failure of offices that were not under him. The lawyers said the board should be answerable to the accusation.

“The county public service board is independent of the governor. The County Assembly is telling us that the governor should have interfered with the recruitment but that would amount to abuse of office and he would have been accused of that later,” said the governor’s lawyer Wilfred Nyamu.

During cross-examination, Mr Wambora said he was consulted by the board when it advertised to fill the positions. He also said the positions sought to be filled were not new posts but were being refilled after officers occupying them were recalled by the Transition Authority.

The Senate committee looking into the accusations that informed the impeachment of the governor last month continued with its hearings yesterday when witnesses gave their accounts.

The embattled governor also said he did not have a written contract for the contested renovation of a stadium in the county. He also revealed that he had not seen tender documents for the projects.

Mr Wambora said he was never involved in any procurement of anything for the county. His lawyers said the county executive officer in charge of finance should be the one to face the charges that touched on procurement.

“The governor cannot be in each office. He cannot be the procurement officer for this case. If there is any anomaly, if there is any problem in procurement then the first person should be the county executive in charge of finance. The County Assembly did not do that. They just went for the governor,” added Mr Nyamu.

An audit done by the Auditor General on how finances were used by the governor and his county government tabled by the county assembly was challenged the governor’s defence who said the report was not official.

“The said report is not official. It cannot be said to apply in this impeachment because it had not been adopted by the County Assembly, said Mr Nyamu.