Foreign trips leave Senate without top leadership

By Geoffrey Mosoku

Kenya: For the first time the Senate’s leaders were out of the country for nearly a week, leaving only junior members of the Speaker’s panel to preside over House affairs.

Speaker Ekwe Ethuro, his deputy Kembi Gitura, Clerk Jeremiah Nyegenye and Senior Deputy Clerk Consolata Munga are all on foreign trips.

Ethuro and Nyegenye left the country last Friday to attend the 130th Inter-Parliamentary Union Convention in Geneva, Switzerland while Gitura and Munga are in New York. The two are in the 66-member delegation led by Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru that left the country on March 7 for the 58th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that ends today, having opened on March 10.

The session’s theme is “Challenges and Achievements in Implementing Development Goals for Women and Girls”.

On Tuesday, Kajiado Senator Peter Mositet, a member of the Speaker’s panel, took the chair to handle the Speaker’s duties in the House because other members of the panel, Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen and nominated Senator Elizabeth Ongoro, who occasionally deputise Ethuro and Kembi were also out of the country.

Thursday, Migori Senator Wilfred Machage was the acting Speaker.

Ms Ongoro is also in New York with Gitura while Murkomen had traveled to South Africa for the Pan-African Parliament.

Thursday, Murkomen maintained it is okay for the Speaker and his deputy to be out of the country at the same time so long as there was a member of the Speaker’s panel left in the country.

International practices

“This week I had gone to the Pan-African Parliament as leader of delegation and senator’s Mositet and Machage were in charge,” Murkomen said.

Both teams headed by the Speaker and his Deputy is due back in the country over the weekend. But not everyone is happy with the situation.

“The Speaker and his Deputy are not to be out of the country at the same time under international practices of parliament,” said a senior Member of Parliament who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The member also said that it was worrying that the Senate bosses chose to travel with the heads of the Senate’s Secretariat at a time when Government is trying to save money due to a bloated public service wage bill by reducing travel expenses.

Deputy President William Ruto said this week the Jubilee government would reduce the budgeting for foreign travel by big Government delegations to tighten its purse.

But it is not only the Senate leadership that was out of the country this week as The Standard also learnt that commissioners of the Parliamentary Service Commission, flew out to Shangai, China last Friday on the invitation of firms being considered for the award of a tender to supply lifts to Parliament.

They are MP Jimmy Angwenyi (Kitutu Chache North), Senator David Musila (Kitui) and Women Representative Regina Changorok (Pokot). It was not clear if engineers who understand specifications of the lifts to be procured accompanied them.

Thursday National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi who is also the PSC chairman, confirmed that the three were on the trip, but refused to divulge more details on the expenditure to be incurred by both the Senate’s leadership and PSC members

Muturi and his clerk Justin Bundi are also said to have severally postponed a meeting with their Senate colleagues to plan the events of next Thursday, when the President will address a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament.

Although, the Constitution provides that Muturi preside over the session assisted by Ethuro, the two must meet in advance to review security and protocol arrangements ahead of the President’s function.

Legislative agenda

Thursday, Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Aden Duale told the House that President Kenyatta would deliver his State of the Nation on Thursday where he would outline the Jubilee government’s legislative agenda.

Uhuru is expected to use the session to enumerate his government’s achievements during the 12 months he has been in office, and the status of the implementation of the country’s international obligations as required by law.

On the start of second session, the Senate amended its standing orders to scrap sittings on Wednesday mornings, and instead use the time for committee sittings. However the House often struggles to raise a quorum for business on Wednesday and this may have informed the decision.