Top Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) officials yesterday rejected some constitutional amendment proposals from the party's technical team.
During a session chaired by party leader Raila Odinga yesterday, the Central Management Committee contested some of the nine proposals that seek to alter the country’s governance system.
Raila later excused himself to go to another meeting and left his deputy, Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya, to steer the session.
The top officials perused the draft proposals clause-by-clause and expressed their reservations about some of the proposed constitutional changes.
Consequently, the meeting resolved to have ODM Chairman John Mbadi, Siaya Senator James Orengo and Suna East MP Junet Mohammed co-opted in the technical team to assist in fine-tuning the document before the party could submit its final proposals to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).
A member of the top party organ said members did not agree to the proposals entirely and suggested “fine-tuning” the document before submitting it to the BBI taskforce.
“For instance, there is a proposal to have a regional assembly where all MCAs from a region would meet four times every year to come up with legislation for the regions. Members felt such a proposal is misplaced," said a member of the committee who did not want to be named.
Expressed reservations
“In short, there were some reservations about some of the proposed changes,” added the member.
Last evening, ODM Director of Communications Philip Etale clarified that the committee did not reject the proposals but was uncomfortable about the language used by the technical team.
“They did not reject the proposals but agreed to fine-tune the working document before submitting it to the Building Bridges taskforce. The language used in the draft proposal was not favourable to some of the members. They agreed to fine-tune it before it can be submitted.”
Apart from Raila and Oparanya, others who attended the meeting included Mbadi, Junet, Orengo, Secretary General Edwin Sifuna, Treasurer Timothy Bosire, Homa Bay Woman Rep Gladys Wanga and Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi.
