The Speaker said he is considering limiting the number of retreats a House Committee can hold outside the capital city.
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 13 – Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi says he will impose a foreign travel ban on House Committees that fail to submit reports of their tours within the stipulated deadline.
He said this will discourage the practice by some committees which have been granted permission to use taxpayers’ money to go for investigative trips but are yet to file their reports for adoption.
“We will now have an administrative ban that they will never be allowed to leave the country because people must work,” he said.
In his communication to the House, Speaker Muturi added: “When they leave the country they must tell us what they are going to do, when they are not bringing their report to the House.”
Similarly, the Speaker said he is considering limiting the number of retreats a House Committee can hold outside the capital city.
“I also hear that committees are finding it difficult to adopt reports in Nairobi, that it becomes easier to adopt reports when they go to the Coast,” Muturi complained.
This is after separate reports from the Auditor General and Controller of Budget claimed that the House loses money following failure by MPs to take up hotel rooms booked for them.
Last month, up to seven House Committees including five from the National Assembly were down at the Coast, for various retreats.
But despite huge expenditures on logistics, some MPs disappear immediately they arrive in Mombasa, causing embarrassing quorum hitches and rendering entire business useless.
Investigations revealed that some lawmakers don’t make the trip but do not cancel their flight and hotel bookings, forcing the National Assembly to incur huge expenses on ‘no-shows’.
And on foreign trips it alleged that some committee chairmen draft in junior clerks who spend time on the Internet, fishing for information on international workshops and conferences that can justify foreign travel.
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