Ruto team to continue pushing for amendments

By Dedan Okango

Higher Education Minister William Ruto has said his team will continue pushing for amendments to the new Constitution even as it enters the implementation stage.

He said the implementation phase should, in the long term, include ‘improving’ of parts of the constitution that the ‘No’ team found defective.

Dismissing his exclusion from the Cabinet implementation committee, he said people should not wait to be in committees to serve the country.

When the time is right, Ruto said, he would clamour for the changes on the clauses that his ‘Red’ team found contentious.

"At this stage, what we should be doing is to implement as we improve. In future, we should amend ambiguous and controversial clauses," he said.

The minister asked politicians to set aside differences if implementation of the new Constitution is to succeed. "The chapter for ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, or ‘Green’ and ‘Red’ is closed and what we should now work to hold the country together," he said.

He was speaking yesterday in Eldoret during a function to upgrade Chepkoilel Campus, a constituent college of Moi University. Ruto challenged institutions of higher learning to provide sufficient expertise, skill and human resource for the devolved units that shall be created under the new Constitution.