A Bill sponsored by Senator Kithure Kindiki seeking to regulate the conduct of Members of County Assemblies through legislation, is a move in the right direction.
The mention of the word 'Member of County Assembly' evokes images of local leaders throwing chairs at each other, hurling insults and generally acting without the decorum expected of those elected to lead and be role models in society.
Previously known as councillors, they were the lower cadre of elected leaders and were notorious for fist fights in the county council chambers over nothing.
The change of name was expected to be accompanied by a change in the mind-set which, unfortunately, has not been the case. Many times, this elected crop of leaders has resorted to fisticuffs where reasoning would have achieved much more.
They have been acting in the most ignoble manner possible thus casting into doubt their abilities to lead.
It is this failure to contain their emotions while deliberating on county issues that necessitates the enacting of laws to control their wild nature.
One could ask what much more laws will achieve in a country where leaders disregard every rule in the book? Sadly, we have become a society where to create order and harmony, yet more rules get devised each day.
The devolved system of governance has brought services closer to the people. Members of County Assemblies, as the first line political managers with enough powers and control over finances, have the enviable position to improve the lives of millions.
In a break from the past, they have the freedom to initiate projects of their choice with a sizable war-chest in their control to see through their projects.
The tragedy is that most of them lack requisite skills and acumen to manage these resources prudently. Instead of providing services to the taxpayer, they are hard at work dipping their fingers in the cookie jar. The uncontrolled foreign junkets attest to this.
Developmental matters have, in most counties, been held to ransom by carefree MCAs who thought it wise to assault governors through a wave of impeachments that alarmed the country. Only the Senate's intervention slowed them down a little.
The County Assemblies, Powers and Privileges Bill 2014 makes it clear that assaulting each other, obstructing, molesting or causing injury to any other member of staff or forcefully compelling others through insults and coercion to either support or decline to support a motion in the chambers is a punishable crime.
The Bill seeks to strip MCAs of the immunity that Members of Parliament sought to have for MCAs while in the chambers.
It is an assault on national values and the code of conduct for elected leaders to commit crime under the guise of immunity, for then we shall have rogues holding sway over society.
It would also be in the interest of good, mature and accountable leadership if the threshold for becoming an MCA was raised to a minimum of a diploma in any academic discipline.
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The same should apply to MPs and other elected leaders whose conduct have at times passed as out of order.
Leaders must learn to carry themselves with respect and where this is deliberately resisted, laws should be enacted to force them to toe the line.
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