Impunity threatens gains of tenth Parliament

At the two-day conference for Members of Parliament in Nairobi, speakers, rightly, hailed Parliament’s growing role in checking the Executive and holding it to account.

It was reported that Prime Minister Raila Odinga complained about backbenchers’ alacrity when summoning ministers and other public officials for grilling.

According to the Premier, some committees derive pleasure in hauling ministers and bewildered civil servants for an inquisition in the full glare of live media when some of the information the MPs are looking for can be received through correspondence.

In the past the Premier has questioned the quality of investigations launched by these committees given that many of the MPs who sit on them lack vital technical and forensic capacities, besides being driven by vendetta to nail, embarrass, and harangue the Executive.

Thankfully, however as Speaker Kenneth Marende demonstrated, the Tenth Parliament has acquired much needed technical capacity to enhance its audit and oversight of the Executive, for example through the establishment of a Budget Office and Legal Directorate that are expected to improve the products of MPs’ deliberations, and reports from committees.

The Speaker deserves accolades for, among other things, ensuring the change of Standing Orders to allow live transmission of Parliament’s proceedings besides having the soberness of mind and moral character to make rulings against the Executive as demonstrated when he disallowed the President’s unconstitutional appointments last year.

The biggest legacy of the Tenth Parliament is the promulgation of the new Constitution in August 2010, built on the gains that began in the previous Parliament.

After legislating to create the Grand Coalition Government, it established commissions that probed the violence and electoral fiasco of 2007 besides interim electoral and boundary commissions that mid-wifed the 2010 referendum and stillborn electoral boundary review.

This Parliament also enacted the International Crimes Act and has since passed 25 private Bills, partly due to the resources now availed by the Legal Directorate, which drafts these proposed laws.

And Parliament’s role has grown, complete with the formation of a Budget Office. Despite efforts by immediate former Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta to break the requirements of the new Constitution that enhances Parliament and the public’s role in budget making, MPs succeeded in forcing greater transparency.

Today no presidential or public appointment can pass without Parliament’s approval. In 2009 Parliament rejected the President’s attempt to impose a new head of the anti-corruption agency and has forced ministers to resign over unethical character.

However, a lot needs to be improved because these achievements have not been without blemish. Some of the egregious things done by this Parliament and its MPs dent the image of the Tenth Parliament.

Two or three politicians control MPs like puppets, in most cases for heinous purposes to foster impunity.

Despite the technical and financial resources at their disposal, MPs cannot justify some of the shoddy investigations they have engaged in. Committees like the Public Accounts Committee no longer fire the imagination of most Kenyans, having generated just two reports in two years. Despite the hubris and drama associated with PAC, it has plunged into the disrepute it was associated.

And even when the committees prepare good reports, recommendations are watered down in tribal and political bickering, the kind witnessed by the recent debate on the depreciation of the shilling. MPs were, reportedly, bought for 30 pieces of silver to change their minds.

The Political Parties Bill 2011 was watered down to satisfy narrow political gains and settle scores at the expense of public good. As the clock ticks to the General Election, there is need to secure the legacy of this Parliament.