In a move that effectively decapitates the nation’s primary financial oversight mechanism, the Council of Governors (CoG) has launched a full-scale administrative insurgency against the Senate.
The county chiefs have officially vowed to boycott all summonses issued by the Senate County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC), signaling a total collapse of the constitutional checks and balances intended to guard trillions in devolved funds.
The “twisted” reality of this defiance is that the governors are no longer just disputing audit queries; they are delegitimizing the very institution of the Senate. Led by CoG Chairperson and Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi, the county bosses have characterized the oversight sessions not as fiscal inquiries but as “political execution chambers.”
By refusing to appear, the governors are essentially creating a “sovereignty vacuum” where county expenditures remain hidden behind a wall of executive silence, beyond the reach of legislative scrutiny.
The urgency of this standoff cannot be overstated. With the boycott in effect, billions of shillings in taxpayer money currently under audit are now in a state of jurisdictional limbo. The governors argue that the Senate has pivoted from professional auditing to “public lynching” and personal harassment, claiming that the committee’s proceedings are being used to settle regional political scores rather than ensure accountability.
This is a direct challenge to the architecture of the 2010 Constitution. If the governors succeed in muzzling the Senate through non-cooperation, the legislative branch loses its most potent weapon: the power of the summons.
As the Senate prepares for a legal counterattack, the message from the Council is cold and final: the doors to city halls across the country are locked, and the Senate’s authority ends at the county boundary. The “oversight war” has officially begun, and the ultimate casualty may be the transparency of the Kenyan taxpayer’s shilling.
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