Truth team beyond redemption, Kibaki told

Lands minister James Orengo. Photo/FILE 

By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA (gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com)
Posted Monday, November 15 2010 at 15:25

Lands minister James Orengo has asked President Kibaki to disband the cash-strapped Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission saying it was unlikely to achieve its mandate.

The minister called for a fresh TJRC to be constituted, saying the current team had lost credibility.

Embattled TJRC chairman Bethuel Kiplagat in October stepped aside after a tribunal was set up by Chief Justice Evan Gicheru to investigate his alleged involvement in events leading to the Wagalla massacre, land grabbing, oppression of civil rights activists and the assassination of former Foreign Affairs minister Robert Ouko under whom he served as permanent secretary.

The retired diplomat has denied any impropriety and expressed confidence that credible investigations will declare him innocent.

However, Mr Orengo said that the fact that Mr Kiplagat remains at helm of the commission meant that the whole of his team was on trial.

“The truth commission cannot achieve its objectives of fighting impunity and reconciling the country because of issues of credibility surrounding its leadership. It should be disbanded and reconstituted anew,” said the minister.

Besides the credibility questions, the commission is in dire need of cash to prevent it from collapse.

Troubles

Mr Orengo blamed the troubles at the commission on poor vetting of its membership.

“The commission lacks a sense of public ownership because only a few stakeholders chose its members. The vetting process should have been more efficient and transparent,” said the minister in Nairobi on Monday during a training session for journalists covering the International Criminal Court investigations.

Mr Orengo is the latest voice in a list of politicians—including Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo under whose docket the team falls— who have expressed discomfort over the commission’s potential to achieve its mandate.

“The very fact that the chair is facing a tribunal undermines the commission’s social acceptability,” said Mr Kilonzo.

The minister says Mr Kiplagat’s decision to face a tribunal as opposed to resigning outright may have put the final nail on the commission’s coffin.

Mr Ababu Namwamba, the chairman of the Parliamentary committee on Justice and Legal affairs also sees no future for the TJRC and has called for its dissolution.

“The president should be bold enough to dissolve it and create room for Parliament to reconstitute it afresh,” he told the commission.