National Assembly Majority leader Aden Duale has warned MCAs from Garissa against passing the Ekuru Aukot’s led referendum bid dubbed‘Punguza Mizigo’.
The Garissa MP said that the MCAs risk facing the people’s wrath should they endorse the move spearheaded by the Thirdway Alliance of Kenya.
IEBC on Thursday okayed more than a million signatures collected by the team, but they will need an endorsement from at least 24 counties to proceed with a referendum.
But Duale said that he would personally ensure the bill does not go through once it is submitted to the county assemblies.
He spoke at Boystown Secondary School when he officiated the launch of revision books for both primary and secondary schools funded through NG-CDF.
The lawmaker said that the only good thing in the initiative was the proposal to increase counties revenue share to 35 per cent from the current 15 per cent.
Other proposals in the bill include using the 47 counties as a single constituency unit for of parliamentary elections, electing one man and one woman from each of the 47 counties to the National Assembly and abolishing the position of the deputy governor.
Others include abolishing nomination seats in county assemblies and the Senate and elevating it to be the upper house with veto powers.
They also propose one seven-year term for the President as well as a cap on salaries of elected leaders to a maximum consolidated pay of Sh500,000 for the presidency and Sh300,000 for MPs per month.
According to Duale, the campaign is dead on arrival and it will be shot down by county assemblies.
“I want to categorically say it here without any fear of contradiction that we will talk to our MCAs in ASAL counties not to pass the bill. As a community, we will sit down and talk to our MCAs and ensure that they don’t get the 24 assemblies,” Duale said.
He added, “ I hear that they are talking of reducing the number of MCAs seats, and totally scrapping the woman rep seat. I wish they knew how this seat is important to the electorates especially women.”
Duale said that as leaders from Northeastern they are “smart enough and will never fall into the tricks being advanced by some of these people who are masquerading in the name of fighting for the common mwananchi”.
(edited by O. Owino)
