“The National Assembly is too big and we have lost the interactivity of leaders. The numbers need to be reduced.” added Kaikai.
Muturi noted the concerns but warned that the numbers could go higher since the House in the next election has to meet the two-thirds gender requirement.
“It is true we are big, and we could be bigger. Help us put these things in perspective,” he said.
It was during the consultative forum that the Editors Guild Secretary Michael Mumo urged the Speaker to enhance interactivity between parliamentary journalists and his office to ease flow of information.
“We have instances where documents tabled on the Floor of the House in a Thursday sitting are only made available to journalists the following Tuesday. The documents should be readily available on the parliamentary website,” Mumo said.
The Speaker who chairs the Committee on Appointments which Tuesday vetted Cabinet Secretary for Water and Irrigation nominee Eugene Wamalwa raised alarm over the poor participation by the public in the process.
The Speaker decried the laxity by members of the public to memoranda supporting or opposing Wamalwa’s nomination even after public advertisements posted in local dailies two weeks ago.
“It is a challenge, I can tell you in the engagement (Wamalwa vetting) that I am supposed to participate in later, the public have not submitted any memoranda either in support or against – we wonder whether we are communicating the right information to the public,” said Muturi.
He called on the media to assist educating the public on the purpose of public participation and why it is necessary for them to present their submissions.
“I cannot blame the media, but we are concerned, do the public understand what is required of them or do they even know who is being referred to as ‘the public’? Because this engagement is becoming narrower and narrower,” posed Muturi.
He said despite even going ahead to hold public forums in a bid to gather the views of the public on issues that concern them, the turn-out was really poor.
The law requires that the public be involved in the process of law-making and the conduct of business Parliament through presenting submissions to House Committees, but this has yet to resonate with the general public.
He at the same time launched an onslaught on the Senate over the supremacy wars between them saying the Constitution was explicit over the roles of both Houses.
He insisted that the Senate does not have a role in the passage of the Division Revenue Bill which recently caused a stalemate threatening to cause a financial crisis.
He said the mandate of the Senate in the management of County funds was in the County Allocation of Revenue Bill.