Parliament, Executive lock horns over Mwende Mwinzi

Parliament is at loggerheads with the Executive over the posting of Mwende Mwinzi to South Korea as an Ambassador despite the fact that they rejected her appointment.

Mosop MP Vincent Tuwei raised the issue after reports indicated that Mwinzi has already assumed her role in Seoul despite the pending matters over her dual citizenship.

Tuwei urged Speaker Justin Muturi to provide guidance over the issue calling on the National Assembly not to allocate money to the embassy in Seoul.

Rarieda MP Otiende Amolo supported the sentiments saying no other entity has the mandate to appoint an ambassador: he wondered how Mwinzi was posted.

Otiende claimed the posting was in contempt of Parliament that should take precedence of all other parliamentary issues.

According to him, claims that a court had made a ruling over the appointment was a fallacy.

Also Read: Win for Mwende Mwinzi in battle to retain American citizenship

He insisted that the court only made certain directions that were rejected by the House.

“I think this is a very important issue, where the law says that the appointment can only take effect by the approval of this House. There can be no other way around it. If the House rejects, there is no other legal process where one can end up being appointed,” Otiende said on Thursday.

He said if the decision will be left to stand, then there will be no need of conducting any future approval hearings.

The House is now set to debate a report by the implementation committee on Tuesday next week.

The committee had rejected Mwinzi’s appointment and demanded that she renounces her US citizenship before she assumes her new role.

Mwinzi was appointed in May last year but she has been in and out of courts after parliament rejected the move after it was established that she holds dual citizenship.