NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 4 – Gichugu Member of Parliament Martha Karua has expressed confidence that Kenya will get a new constitution within one year.
She said on Thursday that the constitutional making process was proceeding smoothly after the swearing in of the Committee of Experts on constitutional review.
“The timetable that we had prepared is for one year and the only debate was when the year should run,” the Gichugu MP stated.
“We had all agreed that it should run from the time the committee of experts were sworn in. That should be late February. So the calendar runs to March next year. ”
In an exclusive interview with Capital News, she called on all Kenyans to put more pressure on the government to deliver on its promises.
“The committee is prepared to deliver on time but we have to play our role as Kenyans,” she encouraged.
“The government is a reluctant reform partner. It is therefore incumbent on the citizens to push the government to deliver the reforms,” she firmly engaged.
At the same time, she termed the move by both ODM and PNU to send members to Geneva to represent Kenya on the Alston report hearing as an embarrassment to the country.
She observed that the trip put a burden on the country’s financial resources and that the differences between the two parties could have been resolved locally.
She stressed that this painted Kenya as a country with no proper system of solving conflicts.
“It’s a shame that the disagreements could not have been sorted out on Kenyan soil so that we do not utilise too much money sending a whole five ministers and a whole support staff to Geneva,” she ruefully stated.
She expressed her support for the Alston report.
“I would not agree with them when they say that they defended both the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police,” she said.
“You cannot reform an institution as a leader if you have superintended over the decline of the institution,” she added.
“The same way we needed Moi to go for reforms to begin is the same way we will need Wako, Ali and even the Chief Justice to go for reforms to begin.”
Her sentiments were echoed by the European Union, which expressed deep concern over the political leaders’ response to the Alston report.
In a press statement, EU heads of missions in Kenya stated that the report underscored the urgency of comprehensive reforms for the Kenya police and justice systems.
The EU urged Coalition partners to take the report seriously by condemning, investigating and punishing all unlawful killings.
It also called for the setting up of improved mechanisms of accountability to ensure such killings are not repeated.
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