Ms Lucy Ndung’u, the Registrar of Political Parties. FILE PHOTO |
What you need to know:
The party’s secretary- general John Okemwa Anunda, and an official, John Kamama Mbugua, want the court to compel Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u to withdraw the Friday gazette notice that deregistered the party.
The officials say the registrar did not accord them an audience before removing the party from the books.
The party said the registrar did not given it a chance to explain why the accounts had not been submitted to the Auditor General.
The party that took former President Mwai Kibaki to State House, the Party of National Unity, was on Tuesday in court to block its deregistration.
The party’s secretary- general John Okemwa Anunda, and an official, John Kamama Mbugua, want the court to compel Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u to withdraw the Friday gazette notice that deregistered the party.
The officials say the registrar did not accord them an audience before removing the party from the books.
PNU’s deregistration is linked to its failure to submit financial accounts to the Auditor- General within three months after the close of the financial year, which is in breach of section 31 (2) of the Political Parties Act.
The party said the registrar did not given it a chance to explain why the accounts had not been submitted to the Auditor General.
Correspondence from the Registrar, PNU claims, had been sent to two strangers, K.K Ndumino and Isaac Rutere, who allegedly acted on behalf of the party without its knowledge.
“The registrar has been misrouting its correspondence to PNU with the result that the party has been kept unaware of intended action. Besides Mr Ndumino, Mr Rutere has been collecting mail from the registrar and is equally a stranger to PNU,” said the PNU lawyer.
PNU reckons that financial statements that were subject to the Auditor General’s audit went missing during the reign of the former officials led by chair and former assistant minister Gideon Konchellah.
“PNU had to obtain a break in an endeavour to access its records to file the returns. Upon breaking into the offices, the documents found were not useful for filing the required returns,” said party secretary general John Anunda.
On Tuesday, Lady Justice Mumbi Ngugi certified the matter urgent but declined to grant PNU orders including the withdrawal of the gazette notice.
PNU has enjoined Attorney General Githu Muigai in the suit which will be heard on Thursday.
PNU has largely been inactive after the death of its chairman, Prof George Saitoti, in a helicopter crash in June 2012. Most of its members decamped to The National Alliance (TNA) of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Surrendered rights
PNU had a pact with TNA where it surrendered its right to field individual candidates during the last election and to support President Kenyatta’s bid.
Signs of trouble in the once most powerful party in the country came to the open last month after auctioneers, acting on a warrant of attachment, descended its headquarters on Musa Gitau Lane, Nairobi, and seized its property.
Flogin East Africa was seeking to recover a Sh1.5 million debt for supply of membership cards in October 2012 which was still unpaid.
Without its own candidates in the last General Election, the party was ineligible to receive funding from the political parties fund; and abandoned by its members, including the former president, it was only a matter of time before folding up.
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