The Jubilee Coalition is insisting on dominating the key watchdog committees of Parliament while albeit allowing the minority CORD alliance to chair the Public Investments Committee and the Public Accounts Committee.

Our sister paper The Standard on Sunday floated the question: “Will Jubilee numbers allow for genuine vetting of public appointments?”

While the story was more broad looking at vetting by the whole House of Cabinet appointments, the same applies to the committees as this is where the major business will be done. The names brought to the floor of the National Assembly fro approval must come from the committees charged with vetting the same.

In a situation where the role of the chairman of such a committee is merely ornamental, it is more than likely that some questionable appointments will make it to the floor of the House where, inevitably, Jubilee has the numbers to shove them down Parliament’s throat.

Kenya is in a unique situation where the minority coalition lacks the numbers to forestall appointments that fail to meet the threshold of integrity as set out in the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

Even worse, if Jubilee has its way and dominates all committees of Parliament, critical ones like the PAC and PIC risk becoming nothing better than rubber stamps.

The new Government has inherited intact the corruption networks of previous administrations, including the defunct Grand Coalition Government of retired President Kibaki and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

One would think that in order to avoid making the same mistakes from Day One, President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto would prevail on their parties to seek a balance in membership of the committees.

The elections are over and the role of Parliament is to check the Executive. That will not be possible if the watchdog committees reflect the dominance of the majority coalition in the National Assembly.

The Executive can display a bipartisan spirit and work with the other side while knocking some sense into hardliners in its ranks who insist on unfurling their victory in the March 4 polls like proud peacocks at every opportunity.