Kilifi County Assembly speaker ousted

Kilifi County Assembly Speaker Teddy Mwambire was on Monday impeached by Members of the County Assembly (MCA) for alleged gross misconduct, sabotage, incompetence and abuse of office.

This is after 40 MCAs supported the impeachment motion.

Ten MCAs 10 voted against the motion to impeach Mwambire, who is a close ally of ODM leader Raila Odinga.

The motion of impeachment for Mwambire, who is also the ODM Kilifi branch chairman, was moved and tabled by Tezo ward MCA Thomas Chengo on June 16.

Chengo, the Pamoja African Alliance (PAA) MCA, initiated the process of impeaching Mwambire and accused him of undermining the roles of the county assembly committees and failing to observe procedural fairness.

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The impeached speaker was also accused of gross violation of Section 36 of the County Assembly Service Act 2017 when he disbanded the County Budget and Appropriations Committee in May and ordered the formation of a whole-house committee without engaging the members involved.

“He has chosen to frustrate the budget-making process, and we couldn’t implement any project, and by impeaching him, we are making sure that the budget is passed and challenges of the locals can be addressed through the budget,” said Chengo.

Chengo accused Mwambire of suspending the Kilifi County Programme-Based Budget Estimates for 2025/26 financial year without engaging the commitee members.

He said the decision reeks of gross misconduct and incompetence and amounts to a gross violation of the Constitution of Kenya.

The mover of the motion further added that the speaker’s actions of disbanding the budget committee were geared to paralyse the Kilifi County government functions.

Mwambire is also accused of compromising the neutrality of his office by actively participating in ODM grassroots elections in Ganze sub-County, where he unsuccessfully contested for the chairmanship position and went on to appeal the outcome.

This, according to the MCAs, undermines the impartiality expected of the office of the speaker.

In his defence, the impeached speaker who was expected to defend himself against the claims during the motion but he did not show up.

Chengo alleges that the speaker refused to appear before the five-member ad hoc committee formed to investigate him over the allegations.

“He was given an opportunity to defend himself but did not show up,” said Chengo during the impeachment motion.

He also said that there were easier allegations that the ODM party had directed its MCAs to abstain from taking part in the motion.

‘’However, the ODM party issued a letter overriding the earlier allegations that had directed ODM MCAs to abstain from taking part in the motion,’’ he said.

Following his removal, Deputy Speaker Naftal Kombo now assumes the role of interim Speaker until a substantive speaker has been nominated, vetted and approved to hold the post.