MPs to amend Parliament rules

By Geoffrey Mosoku

Nairobi, Kenya: The National Assembly is seeking to amend its Standing Orders to review membership of departmental committees in order to accommodate all the 349 MPs.

The house rules are to be changed to either expand membership to its 28 departmental committees or even create more committees to ensure every MP sits in at least two committees.

MPs while approving the Procedure and House Rules committee on Wednesday said they was need to ensure each legislator is given a chance to contribute to governance through participating in the committees.

The 21 member-committee that will amend the houses rules will have Speaker Justin Muturi, his Deputy Joyce Laboso, and Speaker’s panel members Moses Cheboi, Rachel Shebesh, Tom Kajwang and Jessica Mbalu.

Others are John Waiganjo, David Were, Amina Abdalla, Sanjeev Kaur, Hellen Sambili, Silas Tiren, Benson Mbai, Abass Mohamed, Jimmy Angwenyi, Ben Momanyi, Ferdinand Wanyonyi, Florence Mutua, Regina Muia, William Kamoti and Abdikadir Aden.

The first business of the committee will be to sit and review the relevant standing orders and was expected to meet last evening or today morning.

“We need to amend the Standing Orders to ensure each MP is a member to at least one departmental committee and another select or ad hoc committee,” Leader of Majority Aden Duale said.

Duale said that during the tenth parliament, 94 legislators were members of the executive and thus the other remaining MPs belonged to a committee.

He said that under the new dispensation, MPs will play a vital role in governance, which can only be done through the relevant committees.

Suba MP John Mbadi supported the move to review the rules saying it was necessary to accommodate every legislator given that most of the house business well be conducted at committee level.

Government chief whip Katoo ole Metito, urged the committee to expedite the process of reviewing the rules, to allow the select committee to finalize its work of constituting the membership to all committees.

He revealed that the select committee had delayed in naming members to the committee as it could not find enough places for all MPs but hoped that with speedy review of the rules, they will be able to table all committees by next Tuesday.

MPs Nicholas Gumbo, Philip Rotino, Cecily Mbarire and Harrison Kombe and David Bowen warned the selection committee not to recycle certain MPs in almost every committee.

They said while allocating committee membership, the specialty of each legislator should be considered to ensure that leaders are able to tap their professional skills and expertise to that committee.

“For instance I am an IT expert and don’t expect to find myself in the health committee,” Bowen who is the Marakwet East MP said.

Mbarire who is the Runyenjes MP said that the gender rules should be respected, and not relegate female legislators to junior’ committee such as the committee on catering but instead allow women to play their role in critical committees.

She said the female MPs should be allowed to chair some of the key committees claiming that that make colleagues were conniving in the corridors of parliament to deny them committee chairs.

However, Duale in his reply said the MPs appointed to each committee will elect their own chairs and the selection committee will not have any influence on who becomes chair while saying that all committees in the house were equally important.