Agriculture CS Nominee Linturi Struggles to Answer Critical Questions During Vetting

Agriculture CS nominee Franklin Mithika Linturi struggled to answer questions posed by members of the Committee on Appointments on Friday.

The former Meru senator was accused by Speaker Moses Wetangula and his deputy, Gladys Boss, of deviating from answering critical querries.

The Speaker urged the CS nominee to avoid volunteering information and stick to answering the questions posed by the legislators.

“There is a story about the witness who talked too much. You are just volunteering irrelevant information. You are not at liberty to anticipate any questions, you only answer the questions asked by the members,” said Wetangula.

Read: Former Senator Linturi in the Clear As Woman in Sexual Assault Case Drops Suit

“What I will be asking you to do and I am sure you have been watching some of the proceedings from your colleagues, is who is Mithika Linturi, I was born here, I have grown here, I experienced these challenges, I surmounted them.”

Uasin Gishu Woman Rep also scolded Linturi for wasting time on questions not related to the docket that he will steer should he be approved by the committee.

“I am beginning to think the nominee is avoiding explaining how he will transform the docket and the country,” said Ms Boss.

“He is spending too much time on questions that are not relevant to this particular docket.”

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On legal suits filed against him, Linturi sought not to discuss matters still active in court. He, however, noted that he was facing 35 civil suits.

This he said after Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi said that the nominee might be ethically ambiguous since he had in the past been accused of sexual assault and forgery.

According to Linturi, he intimated that he has never once been prosecuted, and as such any concerns about his integrity were baseless until the courts determine otherwise.

“I am an open book, in fact those that write and say I have a litany of cases is an understatement. As I sit here I have 35 cases in court, but they are all civil in nature,” he said.

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On the forgery allegations, he said that the companies in question belonged to him and not his estranged wife, Marianne Kitany.

“I did not forge any documents, this was a situation where the DCI was aiding the complainant who was attempting to take away my investments in this company,” he said.

“I was the complainant because my company had been taken away by fraudsters, but in the course of investigations the DCI and other agents had found a way to deal with me then I was also turned again to be a villain.”

The committee felt the nominee’s performance was dismal when it came to clarifying key issues such as the reintroduction of Genetically Modified Organism crops, scaling production of tea and coffee and solving the sugar crisis in the country.