When will the internal wrangles in NASA end? From Supremacy battles to Financial wars, the coalition seem to be on it’s sick bed headed towards the death bed.
It will be remembered that NASA was sometime back engaged in a serious battle for Supremacy that led to former Senate Majority Moses Wetangula loosing his seat for allegedly going against the Raila-Uhuru unity mission.
After the supremacy battles, a new war has erupted and this time it is due to the millions the political outfit gets from it’s members. It has been established that two partner parties have decided to withdraw financial support.
The two parties have directed that members’ contributions be channelled to their individual party coffers.
As per the coalition agreement, all Nasa affiliate MPs were to contribute Sh10,000 per month to the outfit. A similar amount was being wired to the respective parties’ accounts.
Cumulatively, Nasa was receiving Sh1,520,000 every month from MPs’ subscriptions. This translates to Sh18,240,000 in a year.
Wiper initiated the process to withdraw its members’ contribution from Nasa in a letter to National Assembly Clerk Michael Sialai.
“I did write a letter to the Clerk from instruction of our party’s NEC that our members’ contributions are needed in the party first. As a party, we didn’t feel the accountability aspect of the Nasa secretariat on how the money was being used,” said Wiper executive director Jared Siso.
National Assembly Minority leader and ODM chairman John Mbadi followed suit and wrote to Sialiai directing the Clerk to channel lawmakers’ contributions to their parties.
The Nasa secretariat is run by funds deducted from the lawmakers. Nasa is made up of ODM, ANC, Wiper and Ford Kenya.
ODM has the largest number in both Houses of Parliament—76 MPs and 20 senators.
Wiper has 23 MPs and three senators. ANC has 14 MPs and three senators. Ford Kenya has 12 members in the National Assembly and one senator bringing the opposition outfit’s numbers to 152 in both houses.
If the lawmakers’ contributions are channeled to individual parties, then the coalition’s secretariat will be starved off funds. The secretariat is run by the funds deducted from the lawmakers.
Nasa has moved to the Political Parties Tribunal, demanding that it continue to receive MPs’ monthly deductions.
Nasa wants the tribunal to direct the Registrar of Political Parties to continue channelling the funds to the secretariat.
Through lawyer Arnold Odinga, Nasa said it is entitled to receive the deductions and use the funds in accordance with the coalition agreement entered by the parties.
“The monies have always been remitted directly into the Nasa bank account for the operations and running of the coalition,” the affidavits say.
NASA leader Raila Odinga said channelling the funds to individual parties will jeopardized and compromise operations of the coalition.
Do you think it is time the NASA coalition was dissolved?