Building Bridges Initiative team: We’re ready to wind up in 4 months

Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) advisory task force member Amos Wako during a public participation in Kisumu on June 6. The team has so far visited 35 counties and remains with 12 more to finish up their work. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force will conclude its public participation by October this year.

The task force formed on March 9, 2018 after President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga shook hands outside Harambee House to end years of hostility, has been gathering views on the nine issues identified as problems ailing Kenya.

According to the task force’s Vice Chairman Adams Oloo, the team has so far visited 35 counties and they are only remaining with 12 counties to wind up work.

“We are asking Kenyans to be patient and bear with us to collect and collate Kenyans' views on how best they want to be governed and or to fix our problems,’’ said Dr Oloo.

The team will then compile a draft and hand over findings to President Kenyatta and Opposition leader Raila Odinga for further action.

“It is them who will thereafter give Kenyans new direction,’’ Dr Oloo said.

The BBI tenure was extended in May to October to allow the team conclude its work.

Overwhelming proposals

Dr Oloo told the press that so far there were overwhelming proposals to change and/or expand the executive structure to ensure wide dispersal of power.

“We will still collate and give our final findings. Ours is only to submit the will of the people,’’ he said.

Dr Oloo spoke as they held their 35th session in Kisumu County, where residents led by Kisumu Governor Anyang' Nyong’o gave radical proposals to amend the laws.

Prof Nyong’o enumerated a catalogue of issues he says are bedeviling Kenya, saying there is need to institutionalise the solutions through initiatives championed by the BBI.

“Presidential systems have created autocracy and perpetuated dictatorship. In fact this system never builds political parties, it only destroys them,’’ he said.

The current Presidential system, Nyong’o claimed had marginalised and relegated leaders with good vision for the country to the political periphery, sparking protests.

“Let us not mix issues of structure of devolution with this very important choice between parliamentary and presidential system. Let us put premium on achieving a parliamentary system of government,’’ Nyong'o told the BBI meeting in Kisumu.

BBI members Senator Amos Wako, Florence Omose, Prof Saeed Mwanguni, James Matundura, Major (rtd) John Seii were present.

Others were Rtd Arch Bishop Zacchaeus Okoth, Maison Leshomo, Morompi ole Ronkai, Bishop Peter Njenga, Makueni Women Rep Rose Moseo and Agnes Kavindu.

They told residents to present views even through mails or written memorandum to them as several residents jammed the sessions armed with radical suggestions.

Former Assistant Minister Prof Ayiecho Olweny told the BBI that governors or MPs who loot public funds must be arrested, prosecuted and jailed.

“Some people cannot steal public money and build huge palaces while their subordinates wallow in poverty. No way. Let them, not be spared,’’ he said.

ODM Kisumu Branch Secretary Auma Oriare and Chairman Kennedy Ajwang supported calls for restructing of the Executive.

Parliamentary democracy

They told BBI to let Kenyans decide between the Presidential and Parliamentary system and settle on which works best, adding that wananchi should not be crowded with many questions to decide on.

Nyong’o said it is better to deal with the issue straight and leave out plans to restructure devolution.

If Kenya had been a parliamentary democracy and not a rigid and authoritarian one-party presidential system, ODM leader Raila’s ability and dynamism in organising parties would have ensured his progressive ideas benefited the nation much earlier,’’ he said.

“Instead, Raila was denied the chance of making history for nine years while in detention without trial as Kenya sank deeper into economic underdevelopment,” Nyong'o said.

He said their ambition to build an ideological party would perhaps have been sustained, and good progressive minds would have been retained in the main political arena.

Since power is more effectively devolved under parliamentary systems than presidential ones, the authoritative allocation of values is equally more diversified.

“Thus, an investor has the opportunity to negotiate with the government. In our case, the room for manoeuvre is still limited for the counties,’’ he said.