Shollei: BBI is a joke taken too far

Uasin Gishu Woman Representative Gladys Boss Shollei has criticised the implementation of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s pet project – the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI).

Shollei said the process is a joke taken too far and Kenyans had been taken for fools.

She was speaking today at an early morning interview at Spice FM.

The MP maintains that the recommendations of the BBI report are things that can be solved by existing institutions, which have instead neglected their mandates.

“For example, inclusivity is Chapter 4 of our Constitution, all we need to do is get the National Gender and Equality Commission to do its job… we have people driving Prados, earning a million shillings no less a month to do that. And now we need to do another BBI report to settle it out?”  

She went on: “BBI report says we should broaden our tax base, that is why we have Kenya Revenue Authority”.

“This has become a joke taken too far, when you tell me that we have insecurity in Kenya, we have National Police Service, we have the Kenya Army, we have National Intelligence Service, huge institutions that take huge amounts of Kenyan taxes, that is their jobs,” the MP said.

She faulted the manner in which public sensitisation of the report was being conducted saying Kenyans were being lectured on the report and asked for their views almost instantly.

“We are being taken for fools as Kenyans. First you tell us that you are going to disseminate the report to Kenyans and then you say you are going to get their views. [The] teaching methodology is wrong. You are supposed to disseminate then sit  back and then after a couple of months then the public has views.”

Shollei said the forums had been turned into a showdown of politicians exercising their political muscle.

“I don’t think Uhuru Kenyatta intended it to go out this way and I think someone should let him know,” she said adding that it has since divided Kenyans.

“You cannot go into a political forum and it becomes about William Ruto, they were insulting William Ruto at the political forum, so is that joining Kenyans?” she posed.

She was making reference to COTU’s SG Francis Atwoli’s speech in Bukhungu Stadium, Kakamega at the weekend that held that ‘Ruto will never be president’.

“The BBI process was supposed to have brought Kenyans together according to what the President said and then it has now become a tool that has divided Kenyans. They are going about it the wrong way. They have turned it into political platforms,” she added.

According to Shollei, politicians who were perceived as opposing the BBI report are joining these forums so that they can add their voices.

She insists there is nothing to argue about a report that is pointing out Kenyans problems.

“It says there is chronic unemployment, it says that the political and economic systems have collapsed and are a catastrophe in the making, it is saying there is chronic insecurity in Kenya… the things that the report is telling us about what is wrong with our country are accurate,” she said.