The opposition has once again threatened President Uhuru Kenyatta with an impeachment motion following his firm decision against paying teachers the pay rise awarded by the industrial court.

Cord argues that Uhuru has violated the constitution by disobeying orders of the highest court of the land.

“We want to express our anger and outrage in the manner the Jubilee government has handled the teachers strike knowing that it’s the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), an arm of the government that went to court to challenge the teachers and in the process they lost all the legal processes at the High Court, Court Of Appeal and Supreme Court. What is left is not to say whether teachers are right or not but to urge the government to honour court orders,” said minority leader, Moses Wetangula at a press conference.

“As a coalition we have made a conscious decision over the continued violation of the constitution and disrespect of court orders by the president of the republic when he retorted in relation to this matter; “can’t pay and won’t pay” and went ahead to utter several other harmful statements to the matter, as a coalition we have instructed our team in the national assembly to immediately start instituting a motion of impeachment”, he said.

UHURU SAYS NO TO TEACHERS DEMANDS

President Uhuru Kenyatta declined to obey the court order compelling the TSC to award teachers a 50 to 60 per cent pay rise on grounds that the increment was not only unsustainable but was bound to cause imbalance in the civil service wage structure and spark fresh demands by other workers, adding that Kenyans will have to pay more taxes if teachers demands WERE met.

“Over 50 per cent of what government collects now goes to paying salaries and with the new demands; we will be at over 60 per cent. What is going to be left for development”? Said Uhuru.

CORD TO JOIN TEACHERS IN STREET DEMOSTRATIONS

Cord has also said that it will join teachers in a peaceful demonstration within Nairobi next week on Wednesday over the matter.

Learning in public schools has been paralyzed for the past three weeks since teachers went on strike.

The latest threat to impeach the president becomes the second that the opposition has meted on Uhuru, following a similar threat in May this year, in protest of Uhuru’s decision to pay the debt of Sh1.4 billion owed to Anglo- Leasing companies.