NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 4 – A parliamentary Committee has now summoned Attorney General Githu Muigai alongside the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (CIC) chairman Charles Nyachae next Tuesday, following their recent public spat over the constitutional implementation process.
Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC) Chairman Abdikadir Mohammed told Capital News that the two were scheduled to appear before his team on January 10 to shed more light on the delays in the implementation process.
Mohammed argued that the blame-game between the two institutions was unwarranted and that it was derailing key legislation required by next month.
While the CIC accuses the State Law Office of slowing down and hampering the implementation process, the AG insisted that the commission is overstepping its mandate as it had no right to point fingers at any constitutional implementation actor.
“The implementation process is very long and difficult and it will be even more difficult this year because of the competing interests. So the high level rhetoric between the AG and the CIC is not good; we need to focus on the Constitution,” said Mohammed.
Deputy Prime Ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Musalia Mudavadi together with Lands Minister James Orengo are also set to appear before the CIOC to make known the true position of the bulky lands Bill as well as those touching on devolution.
Mohammed argued that Kenyans had no choice but to set up the required devolution structures before the forthcoming polls set in to prevent them from flopping.
“Do we have the infrastructure for the county governments set? Do we have the physical and human infrastructure set? Do we have the rules set? Can the governor and state legislator go down and start work when we elect them?” he posed.
“If we don’t do that work now we will be setting up those institutions for failure,” he added.
He further asked the ministries of Finance and Local Government to cooperate and ensure that the laws touching on finance and devolution were ironed out.
Mohammed also renewed his warning to the implementation actors saying MPs would not make any special arrangements for them to ensure that the upcoming February deadline was met.
He observed that there were five crucial Bills touching on devolution and land reforms that were still pending despite having a February 27 timeline, adding that they should be forwarded to the AG within the next two weeks.
The Mandera Central MP explained that Kenyans could not afford to rush the process of setting up the legislations as was seen before August 27 last year, when the publication period of Bills was rushed.
“We are already in the first week of January and if these Bills take another three or four weeks we will find ourselves in February. When you add the two-week publication period, before they come for debate, we will end up in the last one or two weeks of February,” he said adding that there would be no time for proper debate.
The CIOC chairman also stated that four of the pending Bills were being held up by the Ministry of Local Government while the fifth one was still at the Lands Ministry.
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