Win for Kericho Governor Erick Mutai as he survives impeachment, again

On Friday evening, 23 senators voted that the County Assembly had failed to meet the constitutional threshold required under Section 33(3) of the County Governments Act, while 17 senators supported the motion for his removal.

Governor Mutai was facing allegations of abuse of office, illegal and irregular appointments, and the dismissal of senior county officials. The Kericho County Assembly had overwhelmingly voted to impeach him, with 33 out of 47 Members of County Assembly (MCAs) supporting the motion

This marked the second time in a year that Mutai faced removal from office, only to be spared by the Senate.

Mutai vehemently denied the charges levelled against him in his impeachment motion, citing that the events were a well-orchestrated plot to hound him out of office for political gain. 

In his opening remarks at the Senate on Wednesday, August 27, Mutai claimed that the Speaker of the Kericho County Assembly sought his removal to take up the gubernatorial position for himself. 

He alleged that during his impeachment before the County Assembly, the Speaker altered the numbers to achieve the two-thirds threshold needed for his ouster. 

"What is happening in Kericho is a well-orchestrated political conspiracy to remove the governor. One is for political interest and expedition, because at the County Assembly we have a speaker whose interest is to be the Kericho governor," he remarked. 

"This is by impeaching the governor and probably along the way impeach the deputy governor and sit as both the governor and the deputy so that out of ten years he served as CEC Kericho in charge of finance and CEC in charge of roads will be able to execute what he never accomplished."

In October last year, Mutai survived a similar bid to remove him from office after the Senate voted in his favour.

At the time, Mutai argued that the Kericho County Assembly failed to achieve the two-thirds threshold for his ouster. Thirty-four senators voted to uphold the governor’s objection, against 10 who voted to have the impeachment hearing continue.