By Martin Masai

The defiance of Machakos County’s top officers against Assembly summons has now morphed from mere absenteeism to an audacious display of executive arrogance, laying bare the rot behind Governor Wavinya Ndeti’s administration.

On Monday, for the second time, the County Executive Committee Member for Devolution Dr. Joel Kilonzo, the Chairman of the County Public Service Board Mr Urbanus Mutisya, and the County Secretary Dr Muya Ndambuki failed to appear before the General Oversight Committee to explain the ballooning and irregular hiring of county staff.

Instead of taking accountability, the officers hid behind carefully worded letters — an insult to a House that had demanded answers on allegations of illegal, irregular, and unjustified recruitment practices.

The session quickly degenerated into a stormy confrontation, as members grew enraged at the brazen contempt of oversight authority.

Speaker Ann Kiusya informed the House that despite repeated directives, officials chose to respond on paper rather than in person.

The fury in the chambers was palpable: it was no longer just about employment malpractice, but whether devolution itself was being reduced to a dictatorship where the Executive cherry-picks which laws to obey.

What was expected to be a decisive censure, however, was blunted by resistance from Wavinya’s loyalists inside the Assembly.

They successfully forced the matter out of the General Oversight Committee’s hands and into the Labour, Public Works and ICT Committee, buying time for the embattled officers.

That committee now has 21 days to table a report. But to the enraged MCAs, this was no victory — it was sabotage of accountability in real time.

The defiance by Devolution minister and CPSB Chairman and the County Secretary, who have now twice snubbed the House, expose the contempt with which Wavinya’s government views oversight.

The Speaker’s confrontation with the Executive traces back to her daring move to haul Finance Minister Onesmus Kuyu — the governor’s blue-eyed “sacred cow” — to the Assembly.

From that moment, the governor and her allies declared war on Kiusya, moving the fight from the floor of the house, it’s corridors, the street outside the chamber and across the road into the courts where a ruling has now been postponed to September 17.

The Executive’s refusal to submit to legislative scrutiny is no longer just an institutional clash — it is a constitutional crisis.

With ministers openly thumbing their noses at summons and Wavinya herself backing their rebellion, the Assembly is being tested on whether it still has teeth or whether Machakos has slid into a one-woman fiefdom or a battleground for Machakos Girls.

The county’s residents, still reeling from run-away corruption, stalled services, collapsing health facilities, and ballooning payrolls, are the ultimate losers.

For them, the excuse-laden letters read in the chambers on Monday are not just contempt for the assembly but contempt for the people themselves.

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