Power games in Parliament never cease and like the second arm in a clock, it ticks every time, waiting for the next.
Just months after another row erupted over the Parliamentary Service Commission to re-hire retiring National Assembly Clerk Micheal Sialai for a one-year contract, a new one has erupted.
This time, Director General Clement Nyandiere is in the crosshairs of what seems as a well-calculated scheme to stop him from ascending past his current position.
Though still not proven, staff within the country’s parliamentary building opines that Nyandiere has been a subject of a probe instigated, fuelled and financed by colleagues in the Senate.
The Senate Clerk Jeremiah Nyegenye has himself invited SCI officers to probe the procurement process at the new parliament building, something that has in the last six years been a greasy pole for senior Parliamentary staff.
The Senate clerk has had a big say in matters within the building and was taken aback when some of the powers were taken away and handed to Nyandiere.
So uncomfortable that many people allege that sex scandals have swirled around senior staff in the place, including the famous arrest of staff members in 2015 that was well-documented in the daily press.
Nyengenye is not clean at all and the families he has messed up across the country and many who have moved to live abroad are many. In his own admission, no one steps on his toes and walks away unscathed.
He is a terrible fighter, vindictive and unforgiving.
The choice of Nyandiere, a camera shy and very private civil servant informs many fronts of the battle to bring him down.
News that he is building a Sh50 million house, might sound outlandish, but the mere fact he is being mentioned in various procurement dealings is fodder to many people in the social media and its feeder system
First, snoops have been planted all over to monitor the Director General and what he does. Even his foreign trips are not short of spies and his social events, though clean so far, they don’t lack someone to plant a scandal.
Subject to a sex scandal, he has managed to weather few storms from his own parliamentary staff in the last few years and obviously his detractors are never short of reason to find a new one to tar his otherwise clean image.
Last week, a spoof sponsored to highlight few scandals in the multi-billion parliamentary budget was nipped in the bud when a weekly paper got wind of the story through a police informant working at the DCI Headquarters
With very few journalist friends known to be close to him and engage in a fight for him, the matter was shelved for further investigation, a matter that he would most likely have to contend with at a letter date.
So far Nyandiere is clean and even his detractors admit it. Even DCI officers on his case have returned verdicts that do not excite the sponsors of the hate campaign.
On his part, Nyegenye is currently facing another probe over allegations of leaking confidential documents to activist Okiya Omtatah.
Nyegenye is the secretary to the Parliamentary Service Commission and is the custodian of commission documents and minutes.
According to sources within PSC Nyegenye is being dragged into an investigation to lay ground for his suspension.
“How can someone senior like him give out confidential documents? It is pure witch-hunt by those who have always wanted him out,” said a commissioner.
Sialai’s term expired on May 26 but the commission resolved to reappoint Sialai for a one-year contract despite having attained the mandatory retirement age of 60 years.
Nyandiere, his enemies allege has in the past been used by various parliamentary committees to help collect bribes from parastatal heads in the country and even
However, Omtatah moved to court to challenge the term extension without the approval of the House as provided in Article 128(1) of the Constitution as well as sections 26, 27 and 36 of the Parliamentary Service Act.
How Omtatah obtained the confidential commission minutes and reappointment approvals is now a subject of police investigations in what has exposed the power battles in Parliament.
There are fears that the control of the multi-billion budgets in Parliament could be at the heart of the wars with some commissioners said to be opposed to Sialai’s term extension.
In the case filed at the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi and certified urgent, the activist says Sialai’s reappointment on a contractual basis is illegal and unconstitutional.
The PSC invited the DCI to investigate Nyegenye and other staff members for allegedly sneaking the classified documents to Omtatah to enable him challenge Sialai’s reappointment.
Consequently, the DCI’s Special Crimes Unit has obtained warrants to search the homes of the six staff to confiscate evidence that would prosecute them for the crime of stealing contrary to section 75 of the Penal Code.
The officers targeted in the search include Nyegenye, Committees Director Florence Abonyo, Clerk Assistant Hassan Odhowa, media relations officer Washington Otiato and Wellington Namenge.
Investigating officer, inspector of police Simon Ndaragwa were given a search warrant by Kiambu Chief Magistrate on May 18.
“Whereas its has been proved to this honourable court on oath that for the purposes of investigating the commission of an offense of stealing contrary to section 268 of the penal code CAP 63 laws of Kenya, it is necessary and desirable to warrants to gain entry and search the premises/ houses/residences of Jeremiah Nyegenye to the Applicant No. 237077 IP Simon Ndaragwa or any other authorised investigator,” read the search warrant.
The purpose of the search is for the collection of any digital, electronic computing devices and gadgets and their passwords, codes and unlock IDs that may have been used to commit the stealing.
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