Mandera MCAs during a fracas in the county assembly chamber on Thursday. [Photo/nation.co.ke]
There was drama on Thursday afternoon in the Mandera County Assembly after members engaged in a fist fight over the vetting of nominees for the county executive member.
The committee, chaired by Speaker Mohamed Khalif was set to table a report rejecting all the ten nominees forwarded to the assembly by Mandera Governor Ali Roba for vetting and approval.
According to the Daily Nation, MCAs allied to the Jubilee Party started whistling when the report was to be tabled which delayed the speaker’s entry into the assembly for about an hour.
The speaker, later on, entered the hall and attempts by him to begin the day’s session was marred by loud blowing of whistles.
Speaker Khalif, of the Economic Freedom Party (EFP), was forced to adjourn the sitting to 8 pm amid fist fighting in the assembly.
Jubilee members, who are the minority in the assembly, accused EFP of rejecting all the ten nominees forwarded to the assembly by Governor Roba.
The members said they will not accept the nominees being rejected while other supported the move saying the nominees were dropped on integrity issues.
“We are aware of the plan to adopt the report rejecting the CEC nominees by the EFP members using the tyranny of numbers and we shall not accept that,” said Mr. Jimale Hassan, the leader of minority.
“All these nominees have integrity issues and those retained by the governor have pending bills which cannot be explained how they came up and how they will be settled,” Majority Leader Abdi Hassan said.
While nominating the CECs, Governor Roba retained five members who served in his first term in office and added five new names after dropping five previous members.