Parliament’s last-minute rush now proving costly

January 2013 cannot have been a good month for the today’s Opposition or the practice of Commonwealth Parliamentary practice.

For in the haste of the Tenth Parliament to meet constitutional deadlines, they literally and liberally burned the midnight oil to allow Kenyans go to the general election with all requisite rules in place.

Kenyans applauded them, but in retrospect, it appears to have been a bad idea. This is because changes made to the law have come back to haunt the Official Opposition denying it absolute numbers in both Houses to effectively institute checks and balances on the ruling coalition.

The business of legislation, right from nominating members of crucial committees and interrogating Buget Estimates is being held hostage to demands by the Opposition that Jubilee cede ground on majority numbers in the critical Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Public Investments Committee (PIC).

Unambiguous

Available evidence in the Hansard shows that the few MPs that sat long hours might just have dealt a mortal blow to the single most defining feature of the PIC and PAC membership numbers by repealing crucial checks and balances.

Where it once unambiguously stipulated that Government shall be denied dominance of the powerful watchdog committees to allow the Opposition discharge its oversight role by having the “Leader of Official Opposition chair PAC or in their absence, a Member from a party not in Government, elected by the Committee”, they substituted this to provide that membership of committees shall in the Eleventh Parliament be based on relative party strength in the House.

This effectively allows the Jubilee Coalition, which spent much time wrapping up post-election deals with smaller parties, almost absolute discretion to control all committees.

Much as we sympathise with the Official Opposition’s predicament and their exposure as a lame duck watchdog, they appear to have been stripped of the legal backing to argue their case.

Whether the Jubilee position might be termed morally wrong, now that we have the binoculars of hindsight, they still have the law behind them to push their agenda through the House.