The Senate Committee on Information, Communication and Technology has summoned the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning Prof Njuguna Ndung’u over failure to honour the Committee’s meeting invitations.
This comes after Prof Ndung’u failed to honour various Committee’s invites to respond to a controversial Ksh4 billion telecommunications tower sale and leaseback transaction between Telkom Kenya and the American Tower Corporation (ATC Kenya) dated October 2018.
ATC Kenya sought the Committee’s intervention after Telkom Kenya defaulted on its payment obligations.
While meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for ICT and Digital Economy Eliud Owalo to consider the issue, Members of the Senator Allan Chesang-led Committee were appalled to learn that Prof Ndung’u had appointed the Director General of Public Investments and Portfolio Management in the National Treasury to represent him.
They cautioned the Cabinet Secretary against sending junior officers to represent him before the Committee adding that the only person they can listen to besides the CS is his Principal Secretary (PS).
“The lowest person we can listen to in the National Treasury is the Principal Secretary. We cannot listen to a director general of a department. The Speaker has made a ruling on that,”
stated Senator Godfrey Osotsi, a Member of the Committee.
“We wrote to invite the CS National Treasury and we didn’t get any reply. It will not be prudent to proceed without the National Treasury because they are a crucial player in this,”
Senator Beatrice Ogolla suggested.
The Legislators accused the National Treasury boss of lacking the commitment to resolve the matter and resolved to give him one more chance to redeem himself by honouring the Committee’s invites.
“We have invited the National Treasury several times but the CS has never appeared. I, therefore, direct that the Committee on ICT summon Prof Njuguna Ndung’u to appear before it at a date that we shall communicate,”
directed Senator Chesang, who is the Chairperson of the Committee.
CS Owalo concurred with the Senators’ views and informed Senators that he couldn’t participate in proceedings involving another ministry where officers at a level lower than even the permanent secretary had been assigned to take part.
He claimed that participating in proceedings attended by individuals who hadn’t been invited to participate in the meeting would demean the stature of his ministry.
