Saturday, August 27, 2011

Historic day as Parliament rushes to meet deadline for crucial Bills



By Martin Mutua

Parliament and the Executive had a hectic day Friday as they engaged in the mad rush to beat Saturday’s deadline of passing key bills, one year after the promulgation of the new Constitution.
With the first anniversary of the new Constitution only hours away, it was all systems go from the beginning of the week in a typical case of management-by-crisis.
Parliament passed a record four Bills Friday bringing to 12 the total number of Bills enacted this week.
President Kibaki and MPs at a past session in Parliament. [PICTURE: FILE/STANDARD]
It was also a day when five Supreme Court Judges were sworn in at State House Nairobi before President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
The establishment of the court alters the political landscape of the country as well as the manner in which the State governs its affairs as the new court will be the highest in the land.
Friday evening, President Kibaki addressed the country on national TV to assure that Government had beaten the Bills deadline.
But it was Parliament that was the highlight of the day as MPs worked late into the night to scrutinise the Bills before embarking on the last business of the day, which was to vet President Kibaki’s nominees to the positions of Attorney General, Controller of Budget and the Auditor General. The nominees for the positions were Prof Githu Muigai, Agnes Odhiambo and Edward Ouko respectively.
At one time this week, MPs and the Cabinet had to sit simultaneously. Parliament normally sits only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but had to extend its sittings to Friday to beat the deadline.

Heated debate
In Parliament, the Elections Bill generated heated debate. At one point, angry women MPs almost threw into jeopardy the entire process as they threatened to stop proceedings in the House after the controversial one-third gender rule was amended during debate on the Elections Bill.
More critically, Parliament made major changes to the Elections Bill. One of the highlights is allowing any registered voter with an identity card to vote.
They argued that an ID card is sufficient proof of identification for those on the voters’ roll.
In previous polls, voters have had to produce both the ID and voter’s cards to cast ballots.
MPs quashed the requirement for a voter’s card, saying it would clamp down on vote buying. They said the cards had promoted election cheating by facilitating bribery of voters through vote buying.
At the same time, male MPs ganged up to defeat a proposed amendment to the Elections Bills that would have compelled political parties to ensure women obtained one third of nominations for polls.
The rejected amendment touching on nomination of candidates by a political party stipulated: “In nominating the candidates for an election a political party shall ensure that not more than two-thirds of its nominees are of the same gender.”
Ironically the record attained by Parliament this week will go down in Parliament’s history as no such feat has been attained since independence. Whereas the House managed to pass 12 Bills between the promulgation of the Constitution last year to the beginning of this month, they passed the same number this week.
In a move being viewed as aimed at stalling a showdown between Parliament and the Judiciary, the House rose to the occasion and defended its turf by meeting today’s deadline of passing critical legislations that were required to be in place one year after the Constitution came into effect. Critics have however, raised the fact that the rush compromises the quality of legislations.

President’s address
Parliament will also be faulted for failing to fill the position of Inspector General of Police as well as the positions for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) that are supposed to have been filled by today.
And President Kibaki seemed to be alive to this fact as he confessed in his anniversary remarks that he delivered to the nation Friday evening.
The President acknowledged that there were a “few challenges” the process faced as they embarked on implementing the Constitution. 
“We have not kept one or two deadlines in terms of appointment of officials due to unforeseen circumstances,” the President said.
And Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo admitted the violations.
“Yes there are violations and they remain violations,” added Mutula. He confessed the position of Inspector General, just like the other new appointments, should have been filled by today and blamed the bureaucracy and the failure by CIC, Internal Security Ministry and the Attorney General’s office to generate the National Police Service Bill earlier for the process to have been undertaken.
“If this Bill which we just passed among the rest this week was brought earlier to Parliament we would have carried out the process but unfortunately that was not the case and that is the situation we are in now,” he added.
The rush to beat the deadline started with an extra-ordinary Cabinet meeting called by President Kibaki on Saturday, which approved four Bills.
On Monday, a Cabinet sub-committee moved to stall a showdown between Treasury and the Local Government ministry over a Bill on funding of devolved governments.
The committee shelved the controversial Public Financial Management Bill and instead plucked out two Bills from it for Treasury namely — The Contingencies Fund and County Emergencies Bill 2011 and National Government Loans Guarantee Bill 2011.
They decided to shelve the Public Financial Management Bill, which does not have a one-year deadline, and have debate carried out in the next phase.
Despite the CIC going to court to block House from having the two Bills debated, they seem to have been outpaced by members as they sailed through yesterday morning after being moved by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

Cabinet meeting
On Tuesday, Kibaki presided over another Cabinet meeting to approve the two Bills, bringing the number to six.
Parliament on the other hand was still debating another six Bills that had been placed before the House, bringing the entire number of Bills to the floor this week to 12.
And to ensure the Bills passed, the powerful House Business Committee meeting under the chairmanship of the Leader of Government Business and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka met on Monday evening and resolved the business of the House be extended beginning Tuesday to deal with the backlog.

No comments:

Post a Comment