Gachagua challenged to return pay recieved while serving as DP

By Peter Ochieng

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has been challenged to return money paid to him as salary and allowances during the the entire time he served as the second in command.

Gachagua was sworn in as DP in September 2022, before being impeached in October, 2024.

According to Suna West Member of Parliament (MP) Peter Masara, Gachagua should 'man up' and return the money, if he can't own up to mistakes made by the Kenya Kwanza administration during his time in office.

“The person who should be held accountable and responsible for the messes in government is Gachagua. He was the principal assistant to the President. The country is too big and the President has so many responsibilities,” the legislature said during an interview on Citizen TV, on Tuesday morning.

“Gachagua was supposed to do his work and if he failed to, he should return even the money he was earning as a deputy president if he was not able to do what was expected of him.”

Gachagua, the MP added, has no chance of being elected to hold any position during the 2027 general elections.

“Even when he gets the sympathy of the entire country, he cannot be elected anywhere. He was a part and parcel of the bad happenings and he was quiet then because he was earning, and he is speaking now yet we were paying him to speak then," he stated.

During an interview on NTV on Sunday, Gachagua distanced himself from failures within President William Ruto's administration, claiming that major decisions were made without considering his dissenting views.

He claimed that he was hounded out of office, for declining to betray Kenyans.

“I have gotten where I am today because I refuse to betray the people of Kenya. What is not right I said and where the people of Kenya raised problems, I would tell the President about it," he said.

Gachagua become the first DP to be impeached since the promulgation of the 2010 constitution.