NAIROBI, Kenya Feb 24 – A stormy session rocked the National Assembly of Kenya on Tuesday following the removal of Suba North MP Caroli Omondi and Kitutu Chache South MP Antoney Kibagendi from key House committees.
ODM leadership in the house termed the exercise as a reconstitution exercise but the affected lawmakers protested as an unlawful purge.
The changes, tabled and approved by the House, saw Omondi removed as Chairperson of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC), while Kibagendi was stripped of his position as Vice Chairperson of the Public Investments Committee on Governance and Education.
ODM insiders described the reshuffle as part of efforts to enforce party discipline, amid reports that Saboti MP Caleb Amisi had earlier warned that Minority Leader Junet Mohammed would crack the whip on what he termed errant members.
But Omondi fought back on the floor of the House, arguing that due process under Standing Order 176 had not been followed.
“One, my understanding of the word discharge as a matter of legal definition is to be released, to be terminated, or to be discontinued as a member of a select committee, which has happened in this case because my name has been excluded in the membership of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee,”the Suba North MP said.
“I have not been accorded an opportunity to be heard, neither has the speaker informed me that he received a notice, neither has the party whip shared with me a letter where she’s recommending that I be removed from that committee,”he added.
He demanded to see a written letter from the whip and notification from the Speaker, citing constitutional provisions on access to information.
Numbers Shift Power
Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah dismissed the claims as misleading, maintaining that Omondi had not been discharged but affected by a broader reallocation of committee slots following by-elections that increased UDA’s numerical strength in the House.
“I did state also that following the small general election of November last year, UDA gained positions even in committees that we did not hold. This is one such committee where we are, because of the size of the committee, we have taken an extra slot in line with our standing orders on how we share positions,”he said.
“Therefore, caroli cannot claim that he has been discharged. It is true and Milie Odhiambo, the minority whip, has not discharged you,”
He further argued that Omondi remained listed as a member of the Sports and Culture Committee, reading out the committee membership from the parliamentary website to counter claims that the MP had been left without any assignment.
Reconstitution or Dewhipping?
Minority Leader Junet Mohammed backed the reconstitution, drawing a sharp distinction between de-whipping and re-organization of committees.
“When you are being discharged from a committee and the whip needs to write to you and give you notice of discharging you from the committee, you don’t have to be taken to the selection committee. A committee of the House sat this morning to reconstitute the committee of the House it has the mandate of reconstituting membership of committees of the House,” he noted.
The reorganization comes days after a resolution was made to replace Junet Mohammed as the Azimio La Umoja Secretary General with Omondi.
In a thinly veiled warning, Junet warned the de-whipping of the Suba North MP having opposed the broad based working agreement was on the way.
“But the one Honourable Caroli is talking about is coming, Mr Speaker. It’s on the way. It’s on the way. I can promise you as the leader. It’s on the way. It’s coming,” he expressed.
Omondi, however, maintained that only the party that nominated him could remove him, insisting that the Selection Committee lacked the power to discharge him without compliance with Standing Orders.
In a dramatic escalation, he accused unnamed leaders of plotting his removal to weaken oversight ahead of the next general election.
“The power of the Selection Committee is to nominate members. I want to be shown the power of the Selection Committee and our standing orders to discharge me from a committee,”
“It is for the benefit of the members, because members have been mistreated in this House, where political differences are brought into this House. They don’t want me to chair CIOC because I’m going to oversight general elections. They want to rig the elections,” Omondi retorted.
Speaker Moses Wetang’ula stepped in to calm tempers, ruling that Omondi had not been discharged but affected by a reconstitution motion rescinding previous decisions of the House.
“On the issue of discharging and reconstitution of committees, the two are as different as day and night. To discharge a member from a committee does not involve the whole House. All your leadership needs to do is to write to the Speaker and say you are being discharged from the committee,”the Speaker ruled.
He directed House leadership to ensure Omondi sits in at least one committee if he was not currently assigned, but stressed that allocation of chairmanships was a matter for party leadership not the Speaker.
The confrontation laid bare simmering tensions within the broad-based government arrangement between UDA and ODM, even as both sides publicly maintain cooperation under a coalition framework.
