Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome has been put on the spot for failing to appear before the Senate a record seven times with Senators threatening to fine her if she fails to appear on Thursday next week.
Wahome was set to appear before the Senate Lands Committee, chaired by Mombasa Senator Mohammed Faki, for the consideration of seven petitions and 28 statements that are before the committee on Thursday morning, but did not show up.
Faki informed Committee members that Wahome had written a letter to the committee stating that she is away in the United States of America on official duties requesting for the scheduling of the meeting to next week when she is around something that irked Senators.
Kirinyaga Senator Kamau Murango called on the committee to take stern action against Wahome since she had failed to honour summons to the committee and should be fined Sh500,000, which is recommended in the parliamentary standing orders for those who ignore invites.
“I would request that we should not be lenient to the Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome since she has not taken the work of this committee seriously by failing to appear seven times, yet we have some very crucial business that is pending that needs to be discussed,” said Murango.
The Senator told his colleagues that they should not let Wahome get away easily, stating that they were to discuss land issues affecting members of the public in the Coast, Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western and Nairobi areas which required immediate attention.
Nominated Senator Mariam Omar said that it was worth noting that Wahome had not even filed responses to the issues raised and that it was wrong for her to do that since she is a former member of Parliament who understands how the houses work.
Omar said that Wahome should set a good example to other Cabinet Secretaries who have never been Members of Parliament by honouring invites whenever called upon since the legislators are representatives of the people and are raising matters of national concern.
“Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome has been a Member of Parliament and knows how the houses of parliament work. She should be the last person not to honour parliamentary invites where she is supposed to shed light on various matters raised by the public,” said Omar.
Faki implored upon the Senators to allow Wahome to appear before the committee next Thursday since the reasons she has given for being away are satisfactory and that should she fail to appear then she will be compelled to after being fined Sh500,000.
The Committee Chairperson said that they should give her time since this was the first time she was appearing before the committee since it was reconstituted in February, and that they might not be aware of the reasons she gave to the previous committee members for not appearing.
“I would like to inform Senators that I will not allow anybody supposed to appear before the committee to fail to honour summons, given that the Lands Cabinet Secretary, Alice Wahome, is out of the country for official duty, we should allow her to appear next week,” said Faki.
