“We have not refused accountability. Article 226 says the accounting officer of the County Government accounts to the County Assembly. There is a PAC in the County Assembly. Even when we send those accounting officers to the Senate, they chase them away saying they want to see the governor. You (constitution drafters) did not give the Senate the power to deal with expenditure, you have given it to the National Assembly and the County Assembly,” said Ruto.
On the emerging conflict between the national government and the Senate Aukot said; “People have not read and understood the Constitution. Article 6(2) of the Constitution states that “the two level s of government are distinct but interdependent, and shall consult and co-operate. Assuming that you do not want to consult and co-operate, then you can transfer functions and functions from one level of government to another as long as the service can be implemented by that level of government and this comes with resources, this according Article 187.”
He went on to point out that Senate which was supposed to protect the interest of the county governments at the national level have been co-opted to create relevance and now part of the ‘tyranny of numbers’.
During his presentation, Aukot also outlined the timelines leading to the referendum putting it sometime in mid 2016, a year before the next General Election.
This raised a lot of questions on the viability of the referendum calls and whether it was practical to hold the plebiscite.
Also present during the debate was constitutional lawyer Yash Pal Ghai who said there were other mechanisms that could be used to deal with the issues raised by governors and the Okoa Kenya movement.
Aukot in his concluding remarks said if he was to initiate a referendum, it would be on over-representation saying there were too many individuals representing the people and thus the reason why the counties were being ‘fought’.
So far both ‘Okoa Kenya’ and ‘Pesa Mashinani’ have begun signature collection with Okoa Kenya claiming to have already surpassed the one million mark by far.
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