Joint parliamentary Justice and Legal Affairs committee chairmen Muturi Kigano (second right) of National Assembly and Senate’s Okong’o Omogeni (second left) address the media at Windsor Hotel yesterday after a meeting on BBI Bill.
| Jeff Angote | Nation Media GroupPolitics
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BBI in limbo as Covid-19 takes toll on its calendar
The planned constitutional change through Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) is facing turbulence in Parliament, in courts and on the political front as Covid-19 takes a fresh toll on its timelines.
Yesterday, a meeting of House joint Justice and Legal Affairs Committee considering the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020, failed to take off under unclear circumstances.
This happened as the Senate and the National Assembly stared at a possible forced recess in compliance with new measures announced by President Kenyatta to contain the third wave of coronavirus.
The House plans to meet tomorrow to decide on Mr Kenyatta’s request at a time the joint committee is scheduled to meet experts again, dealing another blow to BBI business.
Besides that, the BBI is also facing a case in court that will determine whether the process of amending the Constitution through the popular initiative was followed, with the extreme decision being to stop the electoral commission from conducting a referendum.
June referendum
These and other events have cast doubts on a planned June referendum.
In the House joint committee meeting that aborted yesterday, MPs and senators were to listen to presentations from the two legal experts over some contentious proposals contained in the Bill. However, the co-chairpersons called off the online meeting without giving reasons.
“We were to receive presentations this afternoon (yesterday), but we received a message from the chairman calling it off,” a senator, who didn’t want to be named, told the Nation.
After conducting public hearings, the joint committee did not write a report on public views because they identified a number of issues in six thematic areas that require in-depth consideration.
Political deal-making
The committee picked Prof Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Dr Collins Odote to get over the issues in a move that has divided opposition leader Raila Odinga’s party on whether Parliament can amend a constitutional amendment Bill arising from popular initiative as detailed under Article 257 of the Constitution.
The developments come amid intense political deal-making and alliance-building ahead of the 2022 polls.
Mr Odinga’s ODM last week announced plans of a new alliance that they said will “shake Kenya” on the same day Deputy President William Ruto hinted at a possible alliance with the former Prime Minister.
And in a back-and-forth that keeps shaking the BBI boat, the One Kenya Alliance, led by Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Gideon Moi, Moses Wetang'ula, also announced a new union that seemed to isolate Mr Odinga.
However, the proponents of the referendum are still upbeat that the process will run to the end within the allocated time frame.
BBI Secretariat co-chair Junet Mohamed said all was well in the BBI stable. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no imminent threat to the BBI at the moment,” Mr Mohamed, a staunch supporter of Mr Odinga, told the Nation.
“The state of the BBI is good and as for the joint committee, we expect that they will be done within 30 days. When the committee is done, Parliament can be called on a Special Sitting to consider their report. So really, no cause for alarm.”
Former Dagoretti South MP Denis Waweru, who co-chairs BBI with Mr Mohamed, said the hearing of the BBI court cases had been concluded, awaiting a decision even as he insisted that the current political happenings will not derail the process.
“The original intent of BBI is to ensure we’ll not go into another election without resolving issues around cyclic violence and ethnic antagonism.
“Our commitment and that of the President and his Handshake partner is to deliver on this. All the key political players in Kenya are supporting BBI, so we’re not worried about it not passing,” Mr Waweru said.
He added: “The current debates over the 2022 succession are normal and expected and will continue; they’ll not derail the BBI since all these leaders agree on the need and urgency for BBI.”
Mr Mohamed, who is listed as one of the promoters of the BBI, and Mr John Mbadi, who is the ODM national chairman, have opposed the decision to engage the experts, arguing that the role of legislature is ceremonial. They have linked the clamour to engage the experts as a scheme to scuttle the BBI process.
But Siaya Senator James Orengo and his Nyamira counterpart Okongo Omogeni, who are staunch ODM supporters and are known to be close to Mr Odinga, think otherwise and dismiss insinuations that Houses of Parliament are mere debating chambers.
“People shouldn’t be childish on serious issues confronting the nation,” Mr Orengo said, in response to Mbadi and Mr Mohamed.
“Let’s not allow vanity and childishness to prevail in this serious issue,” he said, adding, the precedence of Parliament’s role in the Constitution was established by the Committee of Experts, which midwifed the 2010 Constitution.
Mr Orengo and Co are pushing the 2010 precedence to try to alter the Bill. At that time, the Committee of Experts synthesised the contents of three documents and developed a Bill to repeal the 1963 constitution.
However, the Parliamentary Select Committee altered the documents and changed many of the provisions, and Mr Orengo argues that this is the precedent the joint committee is exploiting to amend the BBI Bill.
Mr Omogeni, who is the co-chair of the committee, alongside Mathioya MP Muturi Kigano, said the concern of the committee is to ensure that the process can stand any constitutional test.
“Any process that we undertake, as Parliament, is subject to the supervisorial jurisdiction of the High Court,” he said. “The desire of the joint committee is to interrogate the Bill and go through a process that can withstand any constitutional challenge.”
