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| deputy Rigathi Gachagua |
President William Ruto’s allies have slowed down their plans to impeach his deputy Rigathi Gachagua, the Star can now reveal.
Instead, the President’s confidants have decided to go full throttle on other available options to clip the DP’s political wings within and without government.
They are pushing for radical budget cuts targeting key spending areas of Gachagua’s office including significantly slashing the confidential budget allocation.
The confidential kitty usually has millions of shillings made available to the DP for operational issues whose expenditure is at his discretion without accountability requirements.
There have been concerns that such resources are deployed by the DP to traverse the country and hold political gatherings to fortify his support bases.
The president’s troops are also planning to kick out Gachagua’s allies from key positions both in the UDA party and in parliamentary committees to clip his wings.
The details emerged amid signals that the President’s loyalists have gone slow on the impeachment plans as one of the options to deflate Gachagua.
The DP’s fallout with his boss appears to have escalated to irreparable levels, forcing the president’s allies to float options to tame Gachagua.
The Star has established that the impeachment option has been dropped after it emerged that it would hand the DP a lot of public sympathy.
The President’s advisers are said to have strongly opposed the impeachment route arguing it would hurt the President’s political fortunes in Gachagua’s Mt Kenya backyard.
On Sunday, Gachagua sensationally claimed there was a plot to assassinate him and his close allies in a wider scheme to vanquish him politically.
The DP made the remarks at a time when the police are said to be narrowing down on two of Gcahagua’s allies –Embakasi North MP James Gakuya and his Embakasi Central Counterpart Benjamin Mejja Donk- in relation to the recent anti-government protests.
The two on Tuesday obtained court orders to stop their arrest and prosecution over their alleged involvement in Generation Z protests that rocked the country in recent weeks.
With the impeachment card seen as untenable, the President’s allies have decided to sideline the DP in the running of government with the relationship between Ruto and Gachagua allegedly irreparable.
National Assembly Majority leader Kimani Ichung’wah claimed that Gachagua had crossed the red line with the assassination claims saying he is out to seek public sympathy.
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“The deputy president needs to ask himself if he still meets the requirements of Chapter Six of the Constitution on leadership and integrity,” he said.
During an interview with the Agikuyu stations on Sunday, Gachagua claimed that one of the National Intelligence Officers he hired after being sacked escaped death narrowly.
“A former NIS officer who I hired to work in my office was followed by unknown people on a motorcycle to my Karen home and was shot and injured in the shoulder but luckily he went to hospital and the bullet was removed,” Gachagua claimed.
Some of Gachagua’s allies in strategic positions in the UDA party are said to be targeted in a grand housecleaning to ensure only Ruto’s loyalists occupy key positions.
On Sunday Gachagua protested the ouster of former UDA Secretary General Cleophas Malala as the president’s lieutenants moved to take charge of the party.
“No one consulted me on the ouster of Cleophas Malala. They evicted him at 5 am. That is not how a ruling party should be behaving. As a party deputy leader, I wanted to attend but by 6 am I was told by my people that the meeting was over,” Gachagua claimed.
On budget cuts, President Ruto on Monday assented to the Supplementary and Appropriation Bill containing Sh6 billion in budget cuts for the office of the President and Deputy President.
Gachagua’s office was the most hurt with cuts amounting to sh800 million in confidential expenditure alongside substantial cuts in travel and hospitality.
by JAMES MBAKA