The motion moved by Kibwezi West Member of Parliament Patrick Mweu Musimba accuses Muturi of failing to protect the dignity, integrity and honour of the house by using disrespectful language against members/FILE
The motion moved by Kibwezi West Member of Parliament Patrick Mweu Musimba accuses Muturi of failing to protect the dignity, integrity and honour of the house by using disrespectful language against members.
“Noting with concern that the Speaker of the National Assembly Hon Justin Bedan Muturi, has and continues to degrade the character and the ability of the honourable members of this August House through making of contemptuous, malicious and unfounded allegations against them, aware that the said allegations have eroded the collective dignity, esteem and honour of members of Parliament in and out of the House, this House expresses its displeasure and disappointment in the conduct of the Speaker and censures him,” the motion says.
After the motion was tabled, the Speaker of the National Assembly ruled that Tuesday would be set aside to debate it as according to the Standing Orders which stipulate that motion discussing the conduct of a Speaker can be debated three days after it is tabled.
“Hon Musimba has today complied with the provisions of Standing Order 87, and as I promised yesterday, I direct that in keeping with practice, this motion will be the only business to be transacted by the House for a period of not less than three hours on Tuesday 24th of March 2015,” ruled Muturi.
Tiaty Member of Parliament Asman Kamama had wanted the House to immediately debate the motion on Thursday so that other business could be conducted on Tuesday saying the matter was weighty and needed urgent intervention.
He was however shot down and jeered by other members with Speaker Muturi intervening to give directions on the matter.
“Were it not for the fact that our Standing Orders demand that the mover be permitted time, I personally would be comfortable to have the motion debated today,” said Muturi.
Majority leader Aden Duale while supporting Muturi’s ruling stated that members who were allied to Muturi also needed to take advantage of the three days to ‘nose around’ and find if there was malice in Musimba’s motion as he could have been persuaded by other forces to subject the Speakers’ character to question.
“We want to thank Hon Musimba, you have not committed any crime, you have done exactly what the law provides for you and hopefully we pray that we all come back on Tuesday. That will even give some of us the reasons and the people behind everything. On Tuesday we can debate from our conscience, so we need to give time to all the 349 members to look at this issue,” said Duale.
On Wednesday, Musimba had sought to have the Speaker vacate his seat so that he could table the complaints he had against him, but this was declined.
The debate is expected to be charged with the Jubilee Coalition which sponsored the Speaker to the position battles it out with counterparts from CORD who have been seen to support the attempts to oust Muturi from the position.
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