RAILA ALLY MAKES URGENT REQUEST TO THE PARLIAMENT

A legislator now wants the National Assembly and Senate recalled for a special sitting to enact the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020, sponsored by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).

Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi, who is a close ally of ODM leader Raila Odinga, says that he has requested the majority and minority leadership in parliament to petition Speakers Justin Muturi (National Assembly) and Ken Lusaka (Senate) to convene a special sitting of the two Houses no later than April 8, 2021 “to deal with this Bill.”

“Anything short of this would be a reckless abdication of duty by the House leadership. The Houses can, and should, debate the Bill and vote on it on a single afternoon,” Mr Wandayi, who is also ODM’s secretary for political affairs, says.

The Ugunja legislator argued that the task parliament has is to pass the Bill as it is and at the referendum later in the year.

“The rest we can deal with later. From my own analysis, the benefits in the BBI Bill far much outweigh the costs, real or perceived,” he added.

The Bill is a creation of the 14-member taskforce that was assembled by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Odinga to implement the nine-point agenda the two leaders crafted to unite the country after their handshake on March 9, 2018.

Mr Wandayi reckons that as the clock ticks towards 2022, time is “increasingly becoming critical in our” collective drive to implement the necessary constitutional, legal and administrative reforms within the BBI framework.

“Parliament, among other institutions, must, therefore, move with speed and play its part by dispensing with the BBI Bill,” he says.

The BBI Bill among others, seeks to expand the executive by creating the position of Prime Minister and two deputies, will rename Cabinet Secretaries to Cabinet Ministers and have them appointed from among MPs in the National Assembly.

By nation.africa