Sonko Steps Aside Over Graft Allegations

Sonko wrote to Senate Speaker Ekwe Ethuro requesting to be excused from Senate proceedings after he was named in the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) report for allegedly influencing a Kenya Pipeline Company tender worth Ksh 46.14 billion.

Speaker Ethuro granted the sixty day leave to the Nairobi Senator saying that it was a good gesture in the fight against corruption.

The letter by the Nairobi Senator read in part, “Pursuant to the report handed over to the joint sitting of Parliament by President Uhuru Kenyatta, it has emerged that my name is included among those to be probed by the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission.”

Modalities for elected leaders to step aside

“In view of that, I request you (the Speaker) to kindly grant me permission of absence in the Senate Assembly sittings as per provisions of Standing Order 243(1) during the sixty days probe period.”

The Nairobi Senator further noted that he had also stepped aside as the Deputy Chief Whip and as a member of the Senate Committee on National Security and Foreign Relations, Committee on Roads and Transport and Committee on National Cohesion and equal Opportunity.

Ethuro, who confirmed receiving the letter, said that the Senate is working on modalities on how elected leaders in future can step aside from their respective positions without risking losing them.