The Punguza Mizigo Bill that seeks to have a referendum on constitutional amendments is driven by vested foreign interests, nominated MP Godfrey Osotsi has said.
The bill by the Thirdway Alliance Party led by Ekuru Aukot has been cleared by IEBC after it raised 1.2 million signatures, 200,000 more than the required one million.
Osotsi on Monday said the manner in which the party raised the signatures was suspect because there was no public participation. As such, he said the process was not inclusive as required by law.
"The process of a referendum must be inclusive for it to have some credibility. We cannot accept a small party from nowhere with vested foreign interests to push through the process and tell us to go to a referendum,” Osotsi told the Star on the phone.
He said the bill was largely academic and not practical except the proposal that wants increased allocations to counties.
The Punguza Mizigo Bill proposes the reduction of the number of lawmakers from 416 to 147 with salary cuts to reduce the wage bill. It also wants the position of deputy governor and nomination slots to Parliament and county assemblies abolished.
The bill proposes a shift from constituency to wards as the focal development points with allocations to counties increased from 15 per cent to 35 per cent.
It also proposes a seven-year single term for the president and have the Senate elevated to become the upper house with veto powers. Salaries of elected leaders, including the president, deputy president, governors, MPs and senators be capped at between Sh500,000 for president and Sh300,000 for lawmakers.
Osotsi said he will support the Building Bridges Initiative because the team went around the country collecting views from the public and stakeholders. He said the team will come up with a final bill for the referendum.
He said that the process of collecting signatures for purposes of amending the constitution presents gaps that need to be addressed.
He said the bill's clearance by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission was suspicious because the agency does not have a database for signatures against which it would have verified those presented by Thirdway Alliance.
Osotsi said he does not support the call to reduce representation, saying that even developed economies like the US have big representation to foster democracy.
He said that the legislature takes less than four per cent of the national budget and anyone talking about reducing the wage bill should target the executive which controls 95 per cent of the budget.
edited by peter obuya
