Butere Member of Parliament (MP) Tindi Mwale has defended Senator Edwin Sifuna against a barrage of attacks he has been under, since he proclaimed that the ODM-UDA pact was dead.
Speaking on Friday, July 25, 2025, during the ODM delegates conference in Kakamega County, Mwale, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), stated that Sifuna only called out the government’s wrongs, and that there was nothing untoward in his statements.
He further noted that after his election to chair the powerful public accounts committee in the National Assembly, Raila personally instructed him not to shy away from calling out the state just because ODM has a working agreement with UDA.
“I visited Raila at his Capitol Hill office after getting elected as the PAC chairman. He instructed me that the fact that we are in the broad-based government should not deter me from calling out the wrongs in the government,” Mwale said.
“So, if the government is making a mistake, even Edwin Sifuna (ODM’s Secretary-General) has a right to say it is wrong. We are not in the broad-based government to live in fear,” he added.
“When Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen issued a shoot-to-kill order to the police, Raila himself came out to condemn it. It should not be misconstrued that we should be silent when the citizens suffer. No,” Mwale stated.
He equally called out Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi for what he termed as budgetary cuts on the education budget.
“Mbadi is our son in ODM, but do you expect us to cheer him on when he slashes the education capitation to schools? We have to call him out and ask him the tough questions. If I were to turn a blind eye and clap for him, where would Kenya be heading?” he posed.
Mbadi, on Thursday, July 24, 2025, revealed that the government was unable to fund the free primary and secondary education.
“The truth of the matter is, we don’t have the capacity to finance Free Primary Education and Free Day Secondary education. Let us not live a lie; the budget we approve cannot provide the Sh22,244 required per learner. This is not possible,” Mbadi said.
