Raila spells out road to changes amid jitters over Aukot new bill

ODM leader Raila Odinga.

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) has now shifted its focus to the writing of the constitution amendment report which may have far-reaching implications on the structures of the Executive and the Legislature.

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is confident that the BBI report will be ready for publication in September, within the deadline set for October.

The ODM leader told Sunday Standard he will hold public rallies with President Uhuru Kenyatta and other like-minded leaders to build a consensus once the report has been published.

“We will endeavour to ensure Kenyans reach a consensus and own the process before the Bill is taken to the county assemblies and Parliament because the will of the people is sovereign and final as provided for in the Constitution,” said Raila at his Mombasa home.

Already, the Punguza Mzigo parallel process led by lawyer Ekuru Aukot has stirred controversy and unsettled political party leaders who had invested their time and interest in the BBI project.

The Aukot Bill proposes drastic changes in the Executive and legislative structures to reduce the numbers of elected and nominated leaders, recommendations which have not gone down well with members of Parliament, especially those in the National Assembly.

The Bill has created excitement in county assemblies and has been warmly welcomed because it proposes that wards to be centres of accelerated development and that they should all be retained as they are.

The BBI therefore has its work cut out, and unless the courts stop the Punguza Mzigo initiative because of alleged anomalies in signature collection, Kenyans will have two referendums that may overburden the taxpayer.

Given the crucial role the counties will play in passing the two referendum Bills, the BBI’s mettle will also be tested should they deem it necessary to propose the reduction of wards as suggested at many of their public hearings.

A senior politician currently working with the BBI told Sunday Standard that the Punguza Mzigo Bill has created confusion, giving the Yusuf Haji-led team options to exploit because their process is backed by public participation all through.

“We know the challenges that lie ahead, but again, we are also aware that the President, Raila and his NASA colleagues can whip enough county assemblies to give us the required threshold of 24 for approving the Bill,” he said.

He also singled out the issue of the authentication of the signatures by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) as another key decision that could chart the way forward for the referendum.

The commission has already stated that it has no way of verifying signatures apart from establishing that all those who appended them are registered voters.

Big problem

Speaking to KTN Point Blank hosted by Tony Gachoka, Rarieda MP Otiende Amolo described IEBC’s explanation as a dereliction of duty because the law requires they verify signatures.

“You cannot say there is no means of verifying because the threshold was put at one million to ensure that any initiative is a serious one and without any doubts,” he said.

He argued that it was of utmost importance for IEBC to publish signatures because similar proposals were made by the Election Observation Group (Elog) on how referendums should be handled.

The MP acknowledged that the wage Bill is a big problem for ordinary Kenyans, but faulted the Aukot Bill for “dangling false carrots by proposing to reduce public expenditure when they were creating separate general and presidential elections and removing the deputy governor’s office”.

“It is more expensive to have two elections and others for a new governor when an office falls vacant instead of the deputy governor taking over the office,” said Amolo.

He said the Aukot Bill was misleading MCAs that only constituencies will be reduced when it is IEBC that retains the powers of delimitation of boundaries.

The biggest worry for the BBI is for the Bill to go through the 24 or more county assemblies because it thereafter goes to Parliament where it does not matter if it passes or rejected, for it must be subjected to the referendum.

Given the demands at public forums, senior politicians behind the BBI initiative are of the opinion that the reduction of parliamentary seats will definitely be subjected to the people for a vote, a subject they know will meet stiff resistance from MPs.

Popular initiative

It has been suggested in some of the BBI debates that the number of seats in Parliament for the elected and nominated be reduced to 290.

Since the law requires that such issues go to the referendum, the outcry and protests from MPs will be their say but the people will definitely have their way as envisaged by the framers of the Constitution.

Unlike the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission which crafted the 2010 Constitution, very little media attention has been shone on the BBI team, which is bound to change given the crucial issues going to be at stake.

BBI will now have at least a month to write its report which will then be handed over to Uhuru and Raila and then published to allow Kenyans to discuss its merits and demerits and see whether their views and ideas were captured.

Once that debate crystalises, and because it is not a parliamentary process, the Bill will then go through the popular initiative by inviting one million signatures.

The Bill, developed under article 57 of the Constitution, will then be sent to the counties for approval, where not less than 24 counties are required to adopt it before it is forwarded to Parliament for debate.

If Parliament endorses it, the Bill then becomes law but that is subject to whether it contains aspects that do not require a referendum, which it will most definitely have.

But even if Parliament does not endorse it, it will still go to a referendum either way.

Issues that require a referendum as stipulated under section 55 of the Constitution include systems of government like the Executive, term of the President and constitutional offices among other areas where Parliament is given an opportunity to agree or disagree but which must go to the people.