NAIROBI: The reality of constitutional deadlines has returned to remind legislators they have to make laws to implement Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, which turns five in five months.
The four bills that threaten to strain relations between the two Houses are the Environmental Management and Coordination (amendment) Bill, the Public Service (Values and Principles) Bill, the Public Audit Bill, and the Public Procurement and Disposal Bill.
All these bills were supposed to be ready by August last year, but the National Assembly raised the two-thirds majority required to extend the constitutional deadline and pushed the deadline to May 27 this year. After that, it took months for the bills to get to the floor of the House.
Two of the bills, the Environmental Management and Coordination (amendment) Bill and the Public Service (Values and Principles) Bill are with the Senate, which has to debate, make amendments and return them to the National Assembly.
The other bills, the Public Audit Bill and the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Bill are still with the National Assembly.
The Finance, Planning and Trade Committee of the National Assembly is still putting together a report on the amendments that will be tabled in the House for approval. They will then be forwarded to the Senate.
Considering that the National Assembly failed to meet the deadline and had it extended by a year, it is logical to assume that unless the senators go out, burn the midnight oil and make it a priority to approve those four bills, the country will be looking at another extension.
National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has already warned that a second extension is unlikely. He believes the time left is enough for the 67-member Senate to enrich the Bills and return them to the National Assembly, which will then quickly approve the bills and send them to President Uhuru Kenyatta for assent.
It is shocking and frustrating that some of the bills, like the Mining Bill, which had very few aspects on the sharing of natural resources, have been stuck in the Senate for four months. Why?
It is also worth noting that the National Assembly has failed to push the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution into making sure that bills that had a five-year deadline from August 2010 are enacted on time.
The term of the CIC is coming to an end and it is unlikely MPs will extend it until it concludes its job.
If the experience of the Tenth Parliament should teach the current bicameral House any lesson, then it should be that hurried legislation is usually fraught with mistakes. It has a tendency of turning out to be shoddy.
When MPs fail to think through laws, or to properly align them the Constitution, the result is that courts will likely declare whatever legislative output they give as illegal.
They ought to know that.
It happened with the Constituency Development Fund, it will also happen with the kitty allocated to Senators (Sh1 billion) and to county women MPs’ Sh2.1 billion vote.
We hope Speaker Muturi and his counterpart in the Senate Ekwee Ethuro will solve their differences in understanding of the law, and come up with a mechanism that will make sure the Houses beat the deadline.
They have no excuse to seek an extension.