Kenya's term at Pan African Parliament expires

The term of Kenya's five MPs ends on Friday when the first session of the third Parliament concludes its sitting.

And a new set of MPs to represent Kenya will only be able to join the South African based Parliament next year, after the March 4, General Election.

Representatives to the 235 member parliament serve for a period of five years and the term depends on when their respective countries carry out their elections.

In Kenya, the MPs are selected by their political parties with respect to their parliamentary strength.

However, most legislators have not served their full five-year terms because party leaders replace them inter-changeably.

Some MPs have also had to give up their seats after getting promoted to the cabinet.

The outgoing MPs are ODM's Nkodila ole Lankas (Narok South), Mr Gideon Mung'aro (Malindi) and Ms Peris Simam (Eldoret South).

Mr Gitobu Imanyara (Central Imenti, CCU) and Mr Abdul Bahari (Isiolo South, Kanu) have been the PNU coalition representatives.

On Monday, Cabinet ministers Musa Sirma and Wycliffe Oparanya of ODM returned to their former Parliament as special guests and were given an opportunity to address the House and awarded for their roles.

Mr Oparanya, the National Planning minister served in the first Parliament from 2007 while Mr Sirma joined the continental assembly in 2008 and left in 2011.

In his speech to the House, Mr Sirma, now the East African Community minister asked African leaders and in particular the presidents to represent their countries' constitutions and cede power when their term expires. Read (Pan African assembly to send poll monitors)

"It remains a matter of concern that democratic maturity is still lacking with constitutions being treated as a mere pieces of paper while the people of Africa continue to cry for change and justice. It is time we send the message that life presidency no longer has any place in Africa,'' said Mr Sirma, an ODM nominated MP.

He told the House, whose members are pushing for legislative and oversight powers that the East African Community (EAC) had made "major'' steps towards achieving full integration and had its eyes firmly fixed on a common monetary union.

Mr Oparanya regretted that the Pan African Parliament was not a key player in policies and development programmes of the African Union and called on member states to implement an amendment to the protocol that established the assembly, to give it legislative powers instead of "merely playing an advisory role and operating on meagre funding.''

"There is an urgent need to make the Pan African Parliament a voice of the African people to ensure that policy issues are taken with the seriousness they deserve. Parliament should also be equipped with capacity to enable it give policy guidelines to the relevant organs of the African Union,'' Mr Oparanya, a former chairman of the Assembly's finance committee said in his address to the House.

Mr Bethel Amadi, President of the Assembly asked the former members including his predecessor's Idriss Moussa of Chad and Tanzania's Gertrude Mongella to be its ambassadors and to also support the bid for more powers.

Mr Amadi, an MP from Nigeria, asked the three to prevail upon the heads of members states and government to adopt the amended treaty to give the Parliament, established in March 2004, legislative powers.