GOVT BUSINESS

A group of ODM MPs Wednesday joined the coalition government power-play saying they will not be “threatened or intimidated” by their PNU colleagues’ vow to take over the leadership of parliamentary business.

The MPs said the push to shift the corruption politics to the House were meant to let the real culprits off the hook. The rejoinder comes just a day after PNU let it be known they would be installing Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka as the Leader of Government Business.

Such a move was contemplated last year and the motion on the matter is now pending with the Procedure and House Rules Committee which is set to introduce the matter into the House when it re-opens next Tuesday. The motion was introduced by PNU’s Kigumo MP Jamleck Kamau.

“Let them (PNU) not forget that it is that committee which will bring this matter to the House,” said Gwassi MP John Mbadi.

Forestry and Wildlife assistant minister Josephat Nanok added: “ODM’s stand (on corruption) is not connected to any dispute with PNU.”

On Wednesday, the 10 ODM MPs, including two assistant ministers, accused President Kibaki of laxity in fighting corruption in government.

“The President is refusing to take action, and in fact has been conspicuously silent amid all the clamour for action,” said Mr Nanok who read the joint statement.

The lawmakers, all of them allied to the PM’s wing in ODM, said they were “gratified” that some of their PNU colleagues were “equally aggrieved” by the President’s laxity.

Addressing a late afternoon news conference in Parliament buildings, the MPs asked the President to uphold Sunday’s suspension, by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, of Agriculture Minister William Ruto and Education Minister Sam Ongeri.

“This is the only way to convince Kenyans that the actions taken so far against the named civil servants are not just a way to buy time for a cover-up,” said Mr Nanok.

The MPs, whose options are “very limited” according to one of their own Budalang’i’s Ababu Namwamba, said the politics over the suspension of the ministers was skirting around the “real issue which is corruption.”

“We are determined to continue playing our constitutional role in a shared government despite all difficulties,” said the MPs, in direct contradiction to the position taken by their party bosses to boycott Cabinet meetings and force a re-negotiation of the National Accord.

But still, they insisted, that the reform agenda –Agenda 4—“cannot be addressed with such corruption.”

“Our problem is that this government does not want to take action,” said Mr John Mbadi, the Gwassi MP. “Only one Principal seems to be working.”

Those citing “ethnic passions” as being the PM’s motive for the suspension of the ministers, the MPs said, were “running away from the real issues.”

They said the ministers and their assistants ought to step aside as long as they sat in a position from which they were likely to influence the investigations.

Calls for assistant ministers to quit have been muted, with only Agriculture’s Kareke Mbiuki saying he would quit “as long as his bosses including the Prime Minister took political responsibility for the maize saga.”

In a strange twist, the MPs disowned their party’s position for the African Union mediator, Dr Kofi Annan, to come back and renegotiate the accord, saying the problem was corruption and not the National Accord.

They did acknowledge that while President Kibaki had ignored the power-sharing principle, they were willing to fight corruption under the “shared government” as long as the “President cleaned out the bad elements.”

Those at the news conference were Mr Nanok, Mr Mbadi, Information assistant minister Dhadho Godhana, Nyakach MP Pollyns Ochieng’, Sigor’s Wilson Litole, and Rarieda’s Nicholas Gumbo.

The others were the new kids in the ODM block Simon Ogari (Bomachoge) and Justus Kizito (Shinyalu). Plus, Alego-Usonga’s Edwin Yinda and nominated MP Musa Sirma.