By Team
Chaos rocked Homa Bay county assembly after a section of member of the county assembly were barred from gaining entry into the house after alleged attempt to impeach the majority leader Mr. Richard Ogindo.
And Homa Bay speaker, Mr. Polycarp Okombo denied having received any petition in his office regarding the impeachment motion against the majority leader.
While separately, Ogindo accused some of the County Executive Members, National elected leaders of being behind the plans to impeach and was meant to sabotage the ongoing splendid development agenda of Governor Gladys Wanga.
“I want to appeal to all the elected Members of the National Assembly’s and the Senate from Homa Bay that we only have elected Governor and they should let her work,” Ogindo said
Ogindo said the planned impeachment were not meant to affect the Assembly but were targeting the Governor.
Okombo said his office had not received any petition motion against the Majority leader.
“My office has not received any petition regarding the impeachment of the Majority leader Richard Ogindo. What has been going around are just rumors from the social media and none of the members has forwarded any signed petition against the Ogindo,” he said.
The Speakers statement comes after a seven of Members of the County Assembly accompanied by close to 50 youths tried to storm into the Assembly compound citing plans to impeach the Majority leader.
However their attempts to gain entry into the house were thwarted the Security Officer, leading to chaotic scenes with police forced to use teargas to contain the situation.
“What we are hearing are just rumors from the social media and none of the Members has ever come to my office with any petition indicating enough signatures to remove the Majority leader,” Okombo said.
“As a Speaker I always advocate for unity, we accept divergent opinions from everyone and we are working as one I’m the house since we want to exist as a whole without losing any member,” he added.
The Speaker hit out at the seven members who tried to storm the house saying looking at their history they used to manipulate the past regime for financial gain.
“We could never ascertain the reasons behind the alleged impeachment since, there was no available documents to prove that,” he said.
The Speaker who was in company of the Majority leader and other 43 MCAs were speaking at the Assembly grounds after the morning session.
Ogindo however accused some of the bloggers of fueling the impeachment motion.
Ogindo said that according to the law, Majority Leader can never be impeached but can only be removed by party members and the party he or she serves.
According to Ogindo, on Tuesday they had a business in the house as usual which was successfully transacted until the house was adjourned after the chaotic attempts.
Support for Governor Wanga
Florence Ouma, an ODM Nominated MCA said it is unfortunate that some MCAs elected on ODM ticket were out to disrupt the assembly operation.
“This Assembly has given us equal treatment, it is in this Assembly that we have three nominated members who are chairs of various committees,” she said.
“Our Governor’s, Speakers and even the Majority leader Offices are open, instead of a member maligning their names outside there, why can’t they just walk into any office and express their grievances?” She questioned.
Edited by Sandra Blessing.
