The National Assembly’s Committee on Finance, which vetted Dr Chumo on Monday, said in its report that the nominee had not met the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution and the Leadership and Integrity Act.
The plenary late in the evening adopted the committee report, sealing the fate of the former Kenya Power boss.
Dr Chumo was on July 16 charged with abuse of office, conspiracy to commit economic crimes and failure to comply with procurement laws while he headed electricity distributor Kenya Power.
Parliament Thursday rejected former Kenya Power #ticker:KPLC managing director Ben Chumo’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) on grounds that he had failed the integrity test.
The National Assembly’s Committee on Finance, which vetted Dr Chumo on Monday, said in its report that the nominee had not met the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution and the Leadership and Integrity Act.
The plenary late in the evening adopted the committee report, sealing the fate of the former Kenya Power boss.
“The committee recommends that the National Assembly rejects the nomination for appointment of Dr Chumo as the chairperson of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission,” the committee said in a report tabled in the House.
Dr Chumo was on July 16 charged with abuse of office, conspiracy to commit economic crimes and failure to comply with procurement laws while he headed electricity distributor Kenya Power.
He was charged alongside 14 senior Kenya Power managers over his alleged role in the purchase of faulty transformers worth Sh450 million.
The former Kenya Power boss had told the committee that the offences for which he was arrested and arraigned were committed between 2011 and 2012, a period when he was neither the chief executive officer at Kenya Power nor a member of the procurement committee.
The committee further noted that the nominee, being a public officer and having been charged with corruption or economic crimes, had not relinquished his position nor stepped aside as chairperson of the Egerton University Council.
MPs concluded that if the nominee were approved for the SRC post, he would find it difficult executing his mandate given that Section 62 of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act requires suspension of public officers charged with corruption or economic crimes.
National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale on Monday said that he was unfit for the SRC position having failed to meet the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution.
“I can comfortably say that within the reading of the Constitution and power of Public Parliamentary Approval Act, he has failed and cannot be approved,” Mr Duale said just hours after the former Kenya Power boss was vetted.
His remarks came after a social media uproar on the rationale for vetting Dr Chumo despite being a suspect in the Kenya Power fraud case.
President Uhuru Kenyatta nominated Dr Chumo for the SRC job on June 27 to replace former chairperson Sarah Serem, whose term came to an end last December. Dr Chumo was picked from a shortlist of big names, including vice-chairperson of the Public Service Commission (PSC) Peter Ole Nkurayia and former Institute of Certified Public Accounts of Kenya (ICPAK) chief executive Patrick Ngumi.
The committee found that while Dr Chumo has good professional and academic qualifications and experience to serve as the chairperson of the SRC, he had failed the integrity test.
