The political supremacy wars between Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka and Governor Charity Ngilu resurfaced during the Senate’s first Mashinani sitting in Kitui County.
Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka, 67 senators and hundreds of parliamentary staff converged in Kitui for the second “Senate Mashinani” session.
The Senate will hold it’s plenary in the same manner and practice as it happens in Parliament, Nairobi.
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Several committees of the House are also lined up to hold sittings at the Kitui County Assembly.
However, the unending rivalry between the two rivals was laid bare when the county leaders allied to Musyoka snubbed a visit by Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka to the Kitui County Textiles (Kicotec).
Kicotec is an initiative of Ms Ngilu but Musyoka, Kitui Senator Enock Wambua, Kitui County Speaker George Ndotto and the top leadership of the assembly have criticised it.
During the visit, the Wiper Party-dominated county leadership skipped the event, terming it “untidy.”
Speaker Lusaka led a team of senators on a tour of the factory.
Reliable sources revealed that the Wiper-dominated assembly has refused to approve the Kitui County Corporations Bill to legalise the Sh168 million factory which currently employees more than 400 people.
It is also understood that Senator Wambua opposed the visit and attempted to persuade the senators from visiting the factory on grounds that it was set up unlawfully.
But Lusaka overruled him, cautioning that the Senate was not in the county for 2022 politics.
In an interview on Monday, Wambua said he snubbed the visit because the establishment of the facility is not anchored in law.
“I had made my position on it very clear. I have no business going where there is an illegality. The auditor-general has raised an audit query on its establishment. That is a place you should not expect to get me," the senator said.
The factory situated at Syongila market, about 4km kilometers from Kitui town on the Kitui-Nairobi highway is modeled like the export processing zone garment industrial unit.
Insiders revealed that Wambua’s no-show at the factory the ugly rivalry pitting the two leaders over the 2022 politics.
Wambua has set his eyes on Ngilu’s seat and has kicked off ground work to dislodge the veteran politician.
The senator allegedly fears the project will give the governor political mileage and dent his chances of unseating her.
Addressing journalists after a tour of the factory, Lusaka gave the project a clean bill of health, saying that they were invited to the facility by the governor.
The Speaker urged both arms of the county government to put in place necessary legal mechanism to ensure that the project operates without hindrance.
