Veteran politician Martin Shikuku. PHOTO / FILE
By Alphonce Shiundu ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, November 25 2011 at 22:00
Posted Friday, November 25 2011 at 22:00
IN SUMMARY
- State has yet to heed the cry of Kenyans for MPs to pay tax on all their House earnings and an apology for the arrest of Shikuku and Seroney
On October 9, 1975, Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Mwau Kibaki engineered a move to exempt MPs’ allowances from taxation.
The same afternoon, Butere MP Martin Shikuku and Mr Jean Marie Seroney, then Deputy Speaker and Tinderet MP, were arrested in the precincts of Parliament, detained and tortured.
Mr Shikuku had said in parliament that the then ruling party Kanu was dead. When asked to substantiate by Mr Daniel Moi, then vice-president and leader of government business, Mr Seroney, sitting on the Speakers chair, said there was no need to substantiate the obvious.
Prayers of Kenyans
More than three-and-a-half decades later, Naivasha MP John Mututho wants the two ills corrected.
The task to do this now rests on President Kibaki.
However, he has shilly-shallied and the prayers of Kenyans that MPs should pay tax on all their earnings, and a government apology to Mr Shikuku and the family of Mr Seroney have yet to come.
Although Mr Kibaki has advocated the payment of tax by all Kenyans, MPs are yet to do so even after the Constitution revoked the exemptions.
The President authorised the allocation of Sh2 billion to foot the arrears from August 27, 2010, when the Constitution was promulgated, to cover the taxes for the remainder of the MPs’ terms.
That matter is closed and the requirements of article 210 of the Constitution will only come into effect in the 11th Parliament.
On Thursday this week, Mr Mututho sought an explanation in Parliament why the government had refused to apologise to Mr Shikuku and Mr Seroney’s family for the detention without trial. Mr Mututho also wants the two political icons compensated.
Their crime, according to a petition filed in Parliament by the Naivasha MP, was that they exercised their right to freedom of speech in Parliament.
“The essence of this petition is that where you sit now, once sat Jean Marie Seroney when he made a landmark ruling that you do not have to substantiate the obvious.
What followed was an absolute abuse of power by the Executive to the extent that he was arrested outside these chambers, harassed and ultimately turned into a pauper.
His properties have been sold,” Mr Mututho told the Speaker, Mr Kenneth Marende, on May 12 this year, when the petition made it to the floor of the House.
That day, the Speaker ordered the Office of the President, through the powerful Internal Security Minister George Saitoti, to respond within three weeks.
Six months later, no word has been uttered about the issue from the President’s Office. On Thursday, Mr Mututho called on the Speaker to ensure that the petition was addressed as soon as possible.
Mr Shikuku is sick and has been in and out of hospital.
Looking back at the Parliamentary records of that day, the crime was an assertion by Mr Shikuku that Kanu, the then ruling party, was dead.
Speaking in Kiswahili, he said: “Anyone who disparages Parliament will be attempting to kill it, just as Kanu has been killed.” Mr Shikuku was contributing to a debate to censure an MP for calling his colleagues “a band of rogues”.
That statement, according to then Vice President and Leader of Government Business in the House, Mr Daniel arap Moi and other Kanu loyalists was an affront to the government.
Not ready to own up
Mr Moi, who went on to become President and further stifled the democratic space, then asked Deputy Speaker Seroney to ask Mr Shikuku to either substantiate his remarks about “the death of the ruling party” or withdraw them.
But Mr Seroney responded: “The Standing Orders are explicit that there is no need to substantiate the obvious.”
For these utterances, the two were punished.
Just 36 years later, Kenya is a different country but the government has yet to apologise.
Will President Kibaki heed the cries of these two?
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