Senate should be given more powers

 

So, it appears most senators are not considering seeking re-election. Some are interested in becoming Members of Parliament, some mutating towards governorship while others seem undecided.

Obviously, the nature of being is to advance itself. By deserting the Senate, these county representatives are telling us there is something unfulfilling.

They are saying that their being cannot any more advance in the way they desire if they remain in the same House. Particularly, by seeking seats in the National Assembly, a position initially perceived junior, it is becoming increasingly clear there is need to re-evaluate the role of the Senate.

The question we need answers for from constitutional lawyers is whether the Senate is actually as impotent as portrayed.

This is important because on the one hand, the streaming away of the legislators from the House suggests the service the Senate is supposed to offer citizens probably lies in other existing institutions. It also gives the impression that the Senate has no impact. Senators are not likely to abandon the office in favour of what seems, relatively speaking, ‘a smaller office’ (read MP) if the impact of their work is felt by voters.

We may also speculate that closely related to lack of impact, the Senate does not have powers necessary to hold sway on matters of public interest.

Whereas devolution, the mainstay of the Senate, is such a central function of governance in Kenya following the enactment of the constitution in 2010, the politics of the moment appears skewed toward debates in the National Assembly enticing favourable public opinion.

The serious and significant debates in the Senate therefore get swallowed in the choruses from the National Assembly.

On the other hand, listening to the quality, depth and relevance of argumentation in the Senate and, if tempted, compared to the National Assembly, one is left wondering how, in all fairness, the House is so underestimated.

The brains in the Senate are sober, sharp, generally highly experienced, focused and issue-oriented. The contribution the Senate has made in the promotion, entrenchment and protection of devolution is enormous.

Even if the Senate yields low impact in the presence of the National Assembly, it is imperative that we interrogate ourselves on the purpose for which it was created.

Overall, the Senate is meant to “represent the counties and serves to protect the interests of the counties and their governments”.

Since Parliament is comprised of the Senate and National Assembly, the roles stipulated for Parliament equally apply for the Senate and so, from a lay persons view, the law gives substantial powers to both Houses to operate on.

Given the spirit in the constitution to create the two chambers, is the fact of the Senate members seeking alternative elective seats an admission that the spirit and the reality are incongruent?

If so, why should we, the taxpayers, continue to pay for a Senate that purportedly serves no purpose? However, I strongly think there is more sense in retaining the Senate by clipping powers from the National Assembly and donating them to the Senate.

We need an Upper House, as it were, to, among other functions, oversight management of public funds, delivery of quality service and offer significant checks and balances. It is wrong practice to take cover in safe institutions without offering solutions to non-performing ones.

Even though our elected leaders have switched off attention from public issues to the pursuit of self-interest in the ongoing electioneering campaigns, there is time to save the taxpayer wastage not by scrapping the Senate but by providing it with more functions.

In this sense, the clarion to downsize the number of MPs in the National Assembly should equally be revisited.