Kenya’s Parliament likely to miss deadline on passing crucial laws

NAIROBI: Parliament will not meet the August 27 constitutional timeline set to enact 18 laws that need to be in place to fully guide the implementation of the Constitution.

This follows failure by some key institutions to deliver the bills to the National Assembly by Tuesday’s deadline.

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi led MPs in protesting the delays yet the House is expected to have enacted them within the next 30 days to the set deadline.

The legislators expressed their displeasure at the executive, the attorney general, Commission on the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) and the Kenya Law Reform for failing to present the bills, yet they know the set deadlines.

"These institutions must take their blame. They cannot expect us to work out miracles and enact these bills within 30 days, when they have not even brought the same to the House,” said Mr Muturi.

He added: “It shocks me that they want us to legislate within a month that which we do not even have now. So much is expected of us yet that much is not being brought to us.”

Chairman of the National Assembly’s Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee Njoroge Baiya (Githunguri) had protested that though respective Cabinet Secretaries under whose dockets the required legislation falls had promised to bring the bills to the house in good time, they had not honoured their word.

“The Cabinet Secretaries had agreed to ensure that they bring these bills before today but as at now, none of these pieces of legislation have been forwarded yet the constitutional deadline is fast approaching,” said Mr Baiya.

The committee chairman said it had become a tradition for the executive to seek extension of the timelines for inaction of the laws, saying it was Parliament that stood accused for the delays.