- Houses are conducting parallel oversight of National Emergency Response Committee on Covid-19 and ministries involved.
- While at it, the legislators are pocketing hefty perks in sitting allowances.
A costly supremacy battle between the two Houses of Parliament has erupted over the oversight of the Executive in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic.
The Senate and the National Assembly are embroiled in a vicious silent war that is now proving costly to taxpayers.
The Houses are conducting parallel oversight of the National Emergency Response Committee (NERC) on Covid-19 and the ministries involved in the fight against the disease.
While at it, the legislators are pocketing hefty perks in sitting allowances.
MPs maintain they are performing their primary role of oversighting the national government and hit out at senators for overstepping their mandate.
“The Senate should be looking at the preparedness of the counties [to fight Covid-19] and not the national government because that is not their function,” National Assembly Minority Leader John Mbadi said.
Senators, on the other hand, argue that besides Health being a devolved function whose oversight lies with them, the Senate is mandated to oversight the Executive.
“Health is a devolved function. What remains at the national government is policy and standards,” Senate Speaker Kenneth Lusaka said.
The National Assembly Health Committee has grilled Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, his Interior counterpart Fred Matiang'i among other CSs on how they are combating the virus.
A similar role is played by a Senate ad hoc committee on Covid-19, with the CSs required to appear separately before both committees to explain the same matter.
Education CS George Magoha was summoned separately by the Education committees of the two Houses on Thursday.
He was required to appear before the National Assembly Education committee at 10am while the senators were waiting for him at 10.30am on the same day to discuss how the pandemic has affected education and plans to reopen schools.
On Tuesday, NA Committee on Delegated Legislation grilled Labour CS Simon Chelugui over the Sh1.3 billion meant to cushion vulnerable families in four counties.
The Senate ad hoc committee chaired by Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja questioned the CS on the same subject barely a fortnight ago.
The duplication of roles sometimes occurs among committees of the same House. In the Senate, for instance, the Health and ad hoc committee clashed on more than once on roles.
The MPs earn Sh5,000 in sitting allowance per session, with the chairs and their deputies taking home Sh10,000 and Sh8, 000 respectively.
There are 34 committees in the National Assembly, each committee having an average of 19 members. In the Senate, there are 20 committees with a maximum of nine members each.
Each member in either of the Houses sits in at least three committees. This means that in a day, if all committees sit, Parliament spends about Sh6.2 million on sitting allowances alone.
Lusaka, Sakaja, Mbadi and Murang’a Woman Representative Sabina Chege, who chairs the NA Health Committee, pulled the string towards their ends, exposing the supremacy war that is now proving costly.
Mbadi and Chege faulted the Senate for overstepping its mandate leading to the duplication of roles between the two houses.
“The Senate mandate is purely county government oversight and they have no business to oversight the national government. That is why there is no money Bill that can originate from the Senate. Our mandate is oversight of the national government,” Chege said.
Mbadi echoed Chege’s assertion, saying that senators had realised they had limited roles that could not match the NA.
“The Senate created that committee [ad hoc] because they realised they have very little in terms of policy decision making. Senate cannot come up with a legislation that would have any implication. They cannot come up with legislation on tax measures, cannot allocate funds, they can’t pass a legislation that cushions businesses. They created a committee that is basically a talk show,” he asserted.
But Lusaka and Sakaja maintained that the Senate is performing its role as stipulated in the Constitution and defended the formation of an ad hoc team to oversight NERC.
“We also have a Health Committee but we said because Covid-19 is cross cutting – it has elements of security, health, transport and all that – we needed one committee that would address all of them,” he explained.
Sakaja appeared to read a sinister motive in the NA’s failure to form an ad hoc committee to work with his team to jointly oversight NERC.
“Initially, we knew they would form an ad hoc committee so that we can work jointly. When an ad hoc committee is formed, it doesn’t mean there are no other committees, but because the issues are cross-cutting, we needed one committee that can deal with them,” he said.
The Nairobi Senator added, “Ideally, we could have wished to have one committee so that we don’t have one CS having to appear in three different committees to respond to the same issues.”
Political analyst Martin Andati observed that the supremacy wars between the two houses were to blame for the duplication of roles in Parliament.
While noting that the virus has hit nearly all spheres of the economy and therefore both Houses have roles to play, he argued that it would have been prudent if they formed a joint committee to oversight the Covid-19 measures.
“Health is a devolved function, so the Senate has a large role in playing its role in terms of oversight. But at the same time, Covid-19 is affecting so many other spheres of the economy. So, it forces the National Assembly to also get involved. That is where the main problem has been,” Andati said.