•CDF was declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court.
•Law is being changed to provide that five per cent of national government revenue goes to CDF.
Image: FILE
Members of Parliament are in for a long wait to entrench the annulled Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in law, a situation that equally stands to affect the beneficiaries.
There is immense pressure on lawmakers over the funds which the court rendered as unconstitutional on grounds it amounted to dividing revenue outside the law.
Parents whose children are the main beneficiaries of CDF bursaries have been in the news lamenting the difficulties they are facing to raise fees.
Two lawmakers have proposed to amend the Constitution to entrench the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF), National Government Affirmative Action Fund (NGAAF), Senate Oversight Fund, and the Economic Stimulus and Empowerment Fund.
Matungulu MP Stephen Mule and his Gichugu counterpart Gichimu Githinji – the co-sponsors, want the law changed to provide that five per cent of national government revenue goes to CDF.
They have also proposed that 0.25 per cent of national government revenue to be allocated to NGAAF and 0.001 per cent towards the Senate Oversight Fund.
For the Economic Stimulus and Empowerment Fund, the lawmakers want the kitty to provide for programmes relating to the empowerment of men, women, youth, and people living with disabilities.
The proposal follows the Supreme Court ruling which declared the CDF Act 2013 as unconstitutional. Treasury has yet to disburse funds, including balances from the previous years following the ruling.
The proposal, however, could take longer to be realised as the bill to entrench the law requires an amendment to the Constitution through a parliamentary initiative.
The long wait follows the requirement that a bill to amend the Constitution cannot be considered 90 days after its first reading.
Article 256 of the Constitution says, “the bill shall not be called for second reading in either House within ninety days after the first reading in that House.”
The legislative proposal is set to be subjected to a pre-publication scrutiny by the concerned committees of the National Assembly to pave way for the first reading.
The bill is likely to read the first time towards the end of the current session, before MPs break for the long December recess.
As such, the earliest the bill could be taken through the second reading could be March next year, a process which follows after public participation on the same.
There are two levels of public participation, being by members giving their views on the proposal and at the committee stage where stakeholders are expected to give their views.
The bill is also considered passed after approval by the two Houses – National Assembly and the Senate, each having its timelines to work with.
“A bill to amend the Constitution shall have been passed by Parliament when each House of Parliament has passed the bill – in both the second and third readings, by not less than two thirds of all the members of that House,” the law reads.
But House leaders and one of the co-sponsors allayed the fears saying they anticipate the amendment would be concluded by end of March next year.
National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula on Tuesday allocated time to the two MPs to explain the legislative proposal to MPs in a plenary sitting.
He said the proposal had complied with the first major requirements of signatures of at least 50 members in support to pave way for the scrutiny.
Speaker Wetangula disclosed that over 200 MPs have signed in support of the legislative proposal, some of whom expressed their views in support of the proposal.
“I note that the proposal by the two members has complied with the first part of the new provision, having obtained signatures of over 200 members of this House,” the speaker said.
Mule, the co-sponsor, told the Star that the main worry could be the 90 days set in the Constitution, adding that they have made tremendous progress in the preliminary stages.
“We have had discussions with the legal team which have already okayed the drafting of the bill. We anticipate concluding the first reading before we break for the long recess,” the Matungulu MP said.
“We intend to make it a priority business once we resume from the December recess. I doubt it would drag that long as feared,” he explained.
The High Court recently ruled that a bill proposing to amend the Constitution cannot be amended once published, hence the proposal for MPs to give their views on the same ahead of the publication.
“As such, the new procedure is aimed at collating as many views as possible from as many stakeholders and experts as may be practicable before the proposal to amend the Constitution is published into a bill,” Wetangula said in his ruling on the proposal.
After Parliament passes the bill, the Speakers of the two Houses – Wetangula and Amason Kingi of the Senate, will jointly present the same to the President for assent.
“…the President shall assent to the bill and cause it to be published within 30 days after it is enacted by Parliament,” the Constitution states.