• Members of the National Assembly will be called for a special sitting next week to debate the BBI Bill among other urgent businesses.
• Some House leaders reached the agreement for a special sitting during a meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
The Raila Odinga-led ODM party could get three additional constituencies to be included in the 70 new ones proposed in the BBI Bill .
Sources in Parliament intimated to the Star on Wednesday that the deal was reached during deliberations by the joint Justice and Legal Affairs committees of Parliament.
Options are being weighted on whether to add the three or adjust the list of 70 to fit the additional constituencies in favour of regions disenfranchised in the current arrangement.
The quest to amend the schedule detailing the proposed 70 constituencies and introduce a slum upgrading fund was at the centre of the standoff in Parliament.
The quest for amendments was the reason the committee had yet to reach a conclusive decision on the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
Following the development, members of the National Assembly will be called for a special sitting next week to debate the Building Bridge Initiative Bill among other urgent businesses.
Some House leaders reached the agreement for a special sitting during a meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday.
The issues of establishing a slum fund was dropped on grounds that there exists avenues for development of informal settlements under the Kenya Slum Upgrading programmes.
The proposed changes, if approved by MPs in the expected sitting, are likely to ignite the debate on what it means to open a bill after approval by county assemblies.
MPs have been split over the protection guaranteed to a bill under popular initiative, which many argue cannot be amended once passed by the county assemblies.
When contacted by the Star on whether there was such a plan, National Assembly Majority leader Amos Kimunya said it was not possible to amend the Bill.
“There will be no amendment. There is no opportunity for such in law,” the Kipipiri MP, who once said in Parliament he was among the persons who developed the schedule, said.
Minority leader John Mbadi earlier said they had agreed with the Majority leader to write a letter to Speaker Justin Muturi to have the sitting on Wednesday next week.
"We shall discuss BBI with or without report; the committee cannot take forever to consider the report," the Suba South MP said.
Raila allies, though, have been vocal about the possibilities of amending the BBI Bill, saying Parliament cannot be a mere conveyor belt in the process.
They said the precedence was set during the enactment of the current Constitution.
Ruaraka MP Tom Kajwang’, during a debate on whether JLAC committees could tinker the BBI bill, said there was no way Parliament’s role can only be ceremonial citing powers in the Constitution’s Articles 94, 95 and 96.
“Since you have brought it before us in the form of a Bill, we will deal with it as the National Assembly. We have a voice to deal with this matter, and how we deal with it is what we have charged the committee to let us know. So, you cannot come here and talk about being ceremonial. You cannot speak politics when we are speaking parliamentary language here,” the MP said.
The calls to amend followed assertions by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, where in its submissions to the JLAC committees emphasised that delimitation of boundaries is squarely its mandate.
Members of the joint committee were split on the matter, with both sides citing the risk of exposing the document to litigations, either way, that is if passed as is or amended.
Constitutional lawyers have on their part maintained that a bill under a popular initiative cannot be amended.
“The Bill cannot and should not be amended because of the route it has used to Parliament. We have to ask ourselves the rationale of having a popular initiative and a parliamentary initiative,” lawyer Bobby Mkangi said.
“Kenyans chose to have two distinct ways of amending the Constitution to give themselves a direct route of infusing changes in the Constitution without the intervention of the political class,” he added.
A Constitutional amendment bill by popular initiative must be supported by more than half or the members of each House for it to automatically become law — if not touching on protected areas.
However, if the bill touches on the Article 255 issues, no matter the vote, the President will submit it to the electoral commission to conduct a referendum.
-Edited by SKanyara