Kericho Governor Erick Mutai's impeachment trial to be held in plenary next week

Impeachment proceedings against Kericho Governor Erick Mutai will be conducted in plenary after a Senate bid to form a special committee collapsed for lack of support.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot moved a motion seeking to establish an 11-member team to probe the governor’s removal from office, but it failed to attract a seconder. This forced the House to settle on a full House hearing.

“The Senate Majority Leader moved the motion under Order Number 9 on today’s Order Paper for the establishment of a special committee to investigate the proposed removal from office by impeachment of Hon. Erick Mutai, Governor of Kericho County. The motion failed to be seconded, and therefore was deemed to have been withdrawn pursuant to Standing Order 71 of the Senate Standing Orders,” Senate Speaker Amason Kingi, while delivering his communication, to the House.

Kingi explained that under Section 33A of the County Governments Act and Standing Order 81B, the Senate has the option to either appoint a special committee of 11 members or conduct the hearings in plenary. He told senators that, with the motion now abandoned, the matter will be prosecuted by the full House.

“The Senate will proceed to investigate the proposed removal from office by impeachment of Honourable Erick Mutai, Governor of Kericho County, in plenary pursuant to Section 33A of the County Governments Act and Standing Order 81B(2),” Kingi said.

He further communicated that the Senate Business Committee had already met earlier in the day and agreed on a framework for handling the matter should the plenary route be adopted. According to the schedule, the Clerk of the Senate will issue invitations to appear to the parties on Thursday, August 21, 2025.

Parties will then be required to file their responses with the Clerk’s office by Monday, August 25, 2025, at 5 p.m.

The Clerk will thereafter circulate all documents received, together with the plenary programme, to senators by close of business on Tuesday, August 26, 2025.

The hearings will then proceed in plenary on Wednesday, August 27, Thursday, August 28, and Friday, August 29, 2025.

The impeachment motion against Governor Mutai stems from resolutions of the Kericho County Assembly on August 15, 2025. He is accused of gross violation of the Constitution and other laws, as well as abuse of office.

Among the charges is the misappropriation and misallocation of county finances, where the governor is alleged to have authorised fictitious payments amounting to Sh85.7 million for goods, services and works that were either not delivered or partially done.

These payments included irregular claims such as maintenance of 15 residential houses, undelivered agricultural inputs, and overpriced items, including sodas reportedly bought at Sh500 per bottle, tissue paper at Sh2,750 per bale, and hand towels at Sh3,600 each.

Other questionable payments amounting to Sh5.1 million were allegedly made to companies without supporting documents, while in some cases, contractors were paid twice from retention accounts for works completed more than five years ago.

The governor has further been accused of contravening procurement laws by failing to establish tender committees, neglecting to seek professional opinions, splitting contracts to avoid open tendering, and failing to conduct market surveys.

These alleged violations led to inflated pricing of goods and services, some of which were paid for in advance despite the county having accumulated pending bills of Sh1.1 billion. A report of an ad-hoc committee of the County Assembly tabled in August 2024 confirmed fraudulent documentation, forged signatures and deliberate cover-ups of theft, but Governor Mutai is said to have dismissed the whistleblowers’ revelations publicly.

Other Topics To Read

• National
• Kericho Governor Eric Mutai
• Kericho Governor
• Kericho MCAs
• Kericho Governor Eric Mutai impeachment
• Kericho County Government
• Kericho County impeachment
• Kericho Governor Erick Mutai's impeachment trial to be held in plenary next week
• Headlines

He is also accused of overseeing the misappropriation of over Sh351 million under the National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project, where funds intended to support farmers and cooperatives in all 30 wards were diverted, with only 19 wards benefiting. Even then, many received substandard furniture and farm inputs without delivery notes or proof of quality. Procurement under the programme was centralised and allegedly handled without transparency in violation of donor and statutory requirements.

The charges also include claims that the governor presided over irregularities under the Financing Locally Led Climate Action Fund, where projects were unfairly distributed on the basis of nepotism. His home ward of Chemosot alone received projects worth Sh21.7 million, while several other wards received none. Some projects funded through the programme were defective, incomplete or substandard, though recorded as fully complete.

Further, Mutai is accused of illegally launching the Equaliser, Kazi Mtaani Initiative on August 31, 2023, and drawing Sh39 million from county funds to finance it without legislation to anchor the programme, without approval from the County Assembly or the Controller of Budget, and without public participation. Expenditure under this programme was allegedly irregular, lacking tendering processes, local service orders or proper delivery of services. A County Assembly ad-hoc committee which exposed these violations was reportedly ignored by the governor.

In addition, the governor allegedly misappropriated funds under strategic intervention projects, including the case of Kunyak Dispensary, where a contractor was paid Sh8.5 million for upgrading the facility into a health centre despite no work having been undertaken.

Another charge relates to the misuse of county emergency funds to compensate victims of the Londiani accident, which allegedly served to cover up the misappropriation of more than Sh9 million in public donations raised separately by a committee the governor had constituted. He is further accused of being complicit in the flawed award of direct tenders to service providers during the fundraiser and requiem mass for the accident victims, and of reneging on his undertaking to implement the County Assembly’s report on the matter.

The Assembly also accuses him of failing to ensure that decision-making in the executive office of the governor was free from corruption, nepotism and improper influence, thereby breaching Article 73(2)(b) of the Constitution.

Beyond financial improprieties, Governor Mutai faces charges of abuse of office. He is accused of engaging in nepotistic and irregular appointments, including hiring his brother as a revenue clerk and confirming his aide’s wife as a nurse ahead of longer-serving contract staff. He is further alleged to have illegally appointed a county attorney while a substantive office holder was still in place, a move that was later declared unlawful by the Employment and Labour Relations Court, which ordered him to personally pay costs of Sh2 million.

The impeachment motion also cites instances where the governor politicised public recruitment by advertising positions for doctors, nurses and ECDE teachers despite knowing that the county lacked the funds to employ them, leading to the abandonment of the process. He is also accused of deploying health workers irregularly without consulting the County Public Service Board, creating confusion and disrupting service delivery.

The charges include allegations that Mutai arbitrarily dismissed senior county officials, among them 10 county executive committee members, six chief officers, two chiefs of staff and other senior staff without due process.

The Senate will now determine the governor’s fate during the three-day plenary hearings scheduled for next week.