The ODM party has declared its opposition to the Punguza Mizigo initiative to amend the Constitution.
Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga's party wants Kenyans to reject the campaign by the Thirdway Alliance party and rally behind the Building Bridges Initiative.
BBI was the result of the famous handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila on March 9 last year.
ODM controls a considerable number of counties but the party did state whether it has instructed its MCAs to shoot down the Punguza Mizigo Bill.
The Orange party and its coalition partners Ford Kenya and Wiper control at least 18 counties and the number could steadily rise if other friendly parties join in.
The stance by ODM could determine the fate of the Bill since the initiative must get the nod of at least 24 counties out of the 47 to move to the next stage.
Yesterday, ODM was categorical that the Bill by Thirdway Alliance cannot be amended and hence the reason it should be rejected in totality.
“Kenyans are called upon to reject it and await the report of the Building Bridges Initiative where they will have a chance to debate the proposals before they are translated into a Constitutional Amendment Bill if any,” secretary general Edwin Sifuna said.
The BBI team was mandated to conduct consultations with citizens, religious leaders, cultural leaders, the private sector and experts.
The team will give proposals on how to tackle negative ethnicity and corruption among other challenges facing the country.
Speaking at party headquarters in Nairobi, Sifuna urged Kenyans to fully rally behind the BBI, which has until October 23 to present its report to President Uhuru and Raila.
Sifuna said the Bill by former presidential candidate Ekuru Aukot was not people-driven and did not result from wide consultations with Kenyans.
“Thirdway chose to forego this and went straight to prepare a Bill with their proposals which were the basis for the collection of signatures,” he said.
No amendments, additions or subtractions can be made to the Bill at this stage. The option for Kenyans is to accept it or reject it wholesomely, Sifuna said.
The Bill is headed to the county assemblies and speakers are expected to submit their decisions to the National Assembly and the Senate.
But the Orange party indicated that it partly agrees with the Bill on several fronts.
ODM agrees with proposals to make every Kenyan who acquires an ID card an automatic voter, increase equitable allocation to counties and having a seven-year one-term presidency but in the context of a parliamentary system.
The Bill wants to address over-representation by significantly reducing the number of MPs.
It proposes the abolition of the 290 constituencies and using the 47 counties as constituencies.
ODM, however, feels that parliamentary representation at the county level goes against the dictum of “no taxation without representation”.
“Long-standing grievances of domination of larger tribes informed Kenyans to review constituencies in the 2010 Constitution. Many small communities that currently have representation stand to be disenfranchised,” Sifuna said.
He said Punguza Mizigo purports to retain the wards to trick county assemblies into supporting the Bill.
To address gender inequality, it proposes Kenyans elect one man and woman from each of the 47 counties into the National Assembly.
It also wants to abolish nominations to the county assemblies and Senate.
“There are no mechanisms to realise two-thirds gender rule in the county assemblies and the Senate,” Sifuna pointed out.
Sifuna said the Bill claims to be targeting sites that burden the public but does not mention the areas of concern by Kenyans.
He said the biggest cause of burden to the Kenyan taxpayer is debt, which currently stands at Sh5.3 trillion.
“It would have been helpful to propose the mechanisms to control runaway borrowing such as a requirement for parliamentary approval of all foreign borrowing,” he said.
Sifuna said that corruption is another major burden as the country loses an estimated Sh600 billion annually and another Sh200 billion is lost due to uncollected revenue.
Thirdway Alliance says its seeks to reduce the cost of running Parliament from current Sh36.8 billion to Sh5 billion annually. This will save the taxpayer about Sh31 billion every year, according to the party.
Sifuna, however, said that while it is important to manage the wage bill, including that of legislators, it is important to tackle the problem holistically.
The ODM secretary general further said the Bill makes wild proposals to make queries in audit reports the basis for prosecutions.
“While audit findings give investigative authorities vital starting points to launch their inquiries, they cannot be the basis for prosecution,” he said.
The Bill further proposes that the Auditor General forward audits to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Directorate of Criminal Investigations within five days of completion of an audit.
The relevant authorities are then supposed to try corruption suspects within 30 days, a matter ODM disagrees with.
“Corruption webs are normally so complex that concluding trials within 30 days is no mean feat. There are myriads of factors beyond human control that result in prolonged trials,” Sifuna said.
He said there would be a likelihood of mischief since all a suspect would need to do is to raise as many objections and adjournments as possible for the 30 days to lapse then call for a mistrial.
Instead, he said the Constitution should be amended to tighten control of public finances, reward integrity, protect whistle-blowers and provide investigating and prosecuting agencies independence.
Other proposals were to strengthen public procurement and asset disposal laws and permanently bar persons convicted of economic crimes from assuming public office.
ODM further said the Bill fails to address a number of pertinent issues that Kenyans have identified previously.
They include citizenship by birth, the structure of the Executive, conflict of interest where public servants trade with the State, electoral injustices and independence of investigative organs among others.
(edited by O. Owino)
