PESA

Kenya councillors have demanded a pay raise as a condition for their support of the proposed Constitution.

The 4,000 councillors made their intentions known during a meeting with President Kibaki at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi Friday.

Unanimous chants of “pesa” (money) punctuated the rhythmic clapping to welcome the Head of State and his retinue of five senior Cabinet ministers into the meeting. This was repeated when the President rose to speak, but as he left the venue, the chant became “No” and “Pesa” (money).

The civic leaders’ boss Ntaraiya ole Kores put the demand to the President.

“When you need us, you call us together. But when we need you, you don’t even have time for us. The time is now.”

However, President Kibaki put paid to the councillors’ move to arm-twist the government to have their salary increase drawn from the Consolidated Fund, if they are to support the document.

“You will not change anything through shouting or bullying (the government). That will not help you. You will only change (the Constitution) according to the will of the people you represent,” the President said.

An angry President Kibaki broke his tradition of only reading the speech and giving the off-the-cuff remarks later. He began with the off-the-cuff, then the speech and wound up with off-the-cuff.

Booing

Interestingly, unlike the booing that the councillors gave Local Government minister Musalia Mudavadi, they kept mum and punctuated the President’s speech with feeble clapping.

“You have to reason. That’s why we produced plenty copies, so that everyone can read and not say that you will just follow what I told you,” President Kibaki said.

“We shall talk to Kenyans, tell them that this is the right change, if they think otherwise, then they’ll say so, because the current Constitution allows them to do so... bullying, shouting or calling each other bad names will not help you.

“Use your unrivalled proximity to the people to give the citizen the right information on the proposed Constitution and remember that you are in your own country called Kenya.”

President Kibaki said the new Constitution was more important than the push for a better pay package for the councillors. He reminded them that there was a 15 per cent revenue allocation to the counties, a figure which, he said, will hugely channel development.

When the meeting begun, the 4,000 grassroots leaders booed the chairman of the Committee of Experts, Mr Nzamba Kitonga, off the dais when he said he wanted to offer “elimu ya ngumbaru” (adult education). They said the use of “ngumbaru” had connotations that they were illiterate.

Mr Mudavadi rose, cajoled the councillors with an instant Sh5,000 pay raise, but they still declined to let Mr Kitonga speak.

Irate civic leaders

They then booed Mr Mudavadi, who read the mood and let Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka address the irate civic leaders. Mr Musyoka invited them to Uhuru Park for the 'Yes’ rally to be held Saturday.

Thus the ministers and the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee, Mr Mohammed Abdikadir, did not get a chance to sell the proposed law to the civic leaders. They even declined to attend the civic education being conducted by the CoE brigade. Only a handful stayed on to listen to the experts.

The push by the 'Yes’ team to woo the grassroots’ leaders came a day after two Cabinet ministers in the 'No’ camp held a secret meeting with an estimated 200 councillors at the Bomas of Kenya.

Higher Education minister William Ruto and his Information counterpart Samuel Poghisio played host to the councillors, many of them from Rift Valley Province, where they highlighted the flaws in the document.

The two were joined by Environment assistant minister Jackson Kiptanui, MPs Kiema Kilonzo (Mutito, ODM-K), Benjamin Langat (Ainamoi, ODM) among others to rally the civic leaders to vote 'No’ in the August 4 referendum.

“We agree that we all want a new constitution for this country…but this document that is being subjected to a referendum in a few months time has lots of errors,” said the minister.

Point of departure

The Higher Education minister explained that his point of departure with the 'Yes’ camp came when they refused to amend sections of the document that contained errors.

“The document has several mistakes but over and above this, we have two constitutions. Kenyans are therefore confused on which document is to be subjected to a referendum,” he said in reference to the altered version of the proposed law that is now subject of a police inquiry.

“All the sections that we opposed during the last referendum have not been amended. You rejected the proposed law then, I don’t see why you should not do it now,” he said.

And in a bid to further persuade the civic leaders to vote against the document, Mr Ruto invited lawyers to explain in detail – including in mother tongue -the flaws contained in the proposed law, mainly the Land chapter.

Nation journalists were kicked out of the meeting as it proceeded after security officials were notified of our presence. They said the meeting was private.

Parliament, the leaders argued, will also legislate laws that set a maximum and minimum acreage that an individual is supposed to own.
“Title deeds will not be issued to individuals who own land below a certain acreage,” Mr Ruto said.

“We are not spreading any propaganda. The issues we are raising are contained in the document. I want to urge those from the pastoralist communities to listen to us carefully. Let them not blame us one day that we did not tell them the truth yet we knew it very well.”