National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi orders members to conclude vote by close of business on Thursday

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi chairs the session after taking oath of office after he was declared winner on Thursday 31/08/17. [Boniface Okendo]

Members of Parliament will start the election of House committee chairpersons and their vice chairpersons today in a process that will end on Thursday.

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi last Thursday ordered that the members elect their leaders by close of business on Thursday, December 21, in accordance with the House rules that such elections be held within seven days of the formation of the committees.

The 32 House committees that will start off the process today include the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Defence and Foreign Relations.

The House rules provide that PAC and Public Investments Committee (PIC), which are the main watchdog committees that examine the national government’s expenditure and revenue accounts and investment policies, be chaired by the minority side.

Unlike  in the 11th Parliament, where PAC and PIC were chaired by lawmakers from the Opposition who were deputised by a member from the majority (Government) side, recent amendments to the Standing Orders have placed the entire leadership of the committee to the minority side.

The amendments further brought the Committee on Implementation under the control of the Opposition since the minority was best placed to question the pace of implementation of Parliament’s decisions.

The elections will be a procession as MPs will only attend to rubber-stamp choices already made by party bigwigs.

On Wednesday President Uhuru Kenyatta summoned the Jubilee Party Parliamentary Group meeting at State House where he drummed up support for those to be elected to chair all the departmental committees of both Houses.

Sources told The Standard that there were strong indications that Nambale MP Sakwa Bunyasi had unanimously been endorsed to chair PAC following an intra coalition agreement that reserved the seat for Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani National Congress.

Mvita MP Abdulswamad Nassir has been proposed to chair PIC, while Narok North MP Moitalel Kenta or Dagoretti North’s Simba Arati will chair the Committee on Implementation.