•MCAs want an opinion on questions relating to approval of a constitutional amendment bill by county assemblies among other matters.
•"The first question concerns whether county assemblies are obliged to conduct public participation when considering a bill to amend the Constitution through popular initiative..." the statement reads.
Image: FILE
The county assemblies of Nandi and Kericho on Monday wrote to the Supreme Court seeking an advisory opinion on the planned BBI referendum.
Specifically, the MCAs want an opinion on questions relating to approval of a constitutional amendment bill by county assemblies among other matters.
"The first question concerns whether county assemblies are obliged to conduct public participation when considering a bill to amend the Constitution through popular initiative..." the statement reads.
The assemblies want to know whether MCAs will be allowed to amend the bill to "align with the contribution by MCAs as well as to incorporate views received from the public during public participation."
They also sought to know whether the passage of the bill required a simple majority, two-thirds or other method of determination.
This comes as the Building Bridges Initiative secretariat on Monday said it will collect one million signatures within seven days.
Addressing a press conference in Nairobi on Monday evening, co-chairs of the BBI secretariat Dennis Waweru and Mohamed Junet said the collection of the signatures will be launched on Wednesday at KICC.
Waweru said from KICC, the BBI train will move to all the 47 counties.
"We now call upon all Kenyans of goodwill, those who want to see an end to corruption, ethnic antagonism, marginalisation of sections of society, the empowerment of youth, women and disabled to board the BBI train," Waweru said in a statement he read on behalf of the secretariat.
Junet said the Constitution Amendment Bill 2020 that had initially stalled the start of a collection of the one million signatures pre-requisite to amend the Supreme law through the popular initiative is now ready.
"Ours is to oversee this process to the next level. After collection of the signatures," he said
The secretariat said it will push through the process while observing all the Covid-19 protocols.
"However, we want to state that the issues contained in the constitutional amendment issues are important issues that will move our country forward,” Waweru said.
Earlier, ODM leader Raila Odinga dismissed chances of substantive amendments to the BBI report.
He said it wouldn't be possible to incorporate major changes to the report considering it was subject of public input for over two years.
Raila on Monday said the referendum drive is on and will move to the next phase - signature collection.
"We will launch signature collection by end of this week," he said after a meeting with 21 current and former MPs from Central Kenya.
Last week, the BBI signature collection exercise was postponed.
In a statement on Wednesday, the national secretariat said the postponement was occasioned by late completion and publication of the Constitution Amendment Bill 2020.
The statement was signed by co-chairpersons Dennis Waweru and Suna East MP Junet Mohamed.
The two said the secretariat is working on a new date "with a comprehensive programme of rollout activities".
This came as President Uhuru Kenyatta hosted his deputy William Ruto for a three-hour meeting at State House, Nairobi.
The two discussed the ongoing BBI debate and how Ruto's concerns can be accommodated before the process moves further.