Divided House set to debate Kibaki memo

The fate of the President’s memorandum rejecting the calls to have the provincial administration placed under the ambit of the governors will be known on Tuesday, when the Local Authorities Committee tables its critique of the memorandum in the House.

The memo has exposed a dysfunctional coalition government given that the amendment to make the provincial administrators part of the county administration was a product of Mr Musalia Mudavadi, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government.

The night-time amendment (the House sat late that day) raised a storm. The Office of the President, in which the provincial administration is domiciled, said it had been ambushed. (READ: Kibaki’s memo stirs up MPs)

That night, 10 days ago, the front bench abandoned Mr Mudavadi and he, with Lands minister James Orengo, had to fight off about 20 backbenchers keen to abolish the system.

Mr Mudavadi is piqued that he spent long hours in the House to ensure the Bill was enacted, only for the Head of State to reject it.

He has vowed to report the absentee ministers to the President at this week’s Cabinet meeting.

Back to that night. Bura MP Dr Abdi Nuh had proposed the amendment to have the provincial administration report to the governor at the county level. But, as the night wore on, Yusuf Chanzu (Vihiga) decided to delete the whole clause and changed it to establish village units. The changes made Dr Nuh’s amendment untenable.

“Since even for my amendment I had consulted the minister as well, and I do not have powers to move any new amendments now and the minister has been granted such powers by the Standing Orders, then I would rather donate my amendment to him, so that he can move it as a new amendment,” Dr Nuh pleaded with Mr Mudavadi.

Having read the mood that the House was so much against the provincial administration – something most MPs equate to a colonial relic – Mr Mudavadi acquiesced. He took over to Dr Nuh’s amendment. The MPs, including Dr Nuh, supported the move and thus the Bill was approved.

OP and State House were not amused. So, on Monday morning, when the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr Patrick Gichohi, presented the Bills to the Attorney-General for submission to the President for assent, there was a crisis meeting. (READ: House and Executive clash over county law)

The Sunday Nation learnt that the AG and Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo asked the President to reject the Bill because of the changes.

The argument from OP was that it was the President’s function to decide how he would “restructure” the provincial administration according to the Sixth Schedule which says the national government shall restructure the provincial administration within five years.

That the President, in his memo, rejected the amendment as “unconstitutional” cast doubts on the whole exercise of law-making in the House. The procedure is that amendments are filed with the Legal Counsel of Parliament for their legality to be ascertained and then drafting is done for presentation to the House.

The argument in Parliament is that the President had no basis to question the legality of the motion given that it had the nod of the Legal Counsel of Parliament.

Mr Njoroge Baiya, the de facto chairman of the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee, said the House and the people of Kenya had declared that they didn’t want the provincial administration.

Colonial thing

“Why do we need it? If it was bad for the President, will it be good for the governor? It is associated with tyranny. It is a colonial thing,” Mr Baiya said.

But the Kenya Law Reform Commission, the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution, the AG and the Justice minister agree with the President.

“The Constitution wants the national government to determine the fate of the provincial administration once the county governments are in place,” said KLR secretary Joash Dache, who drafted the County Governments Bill, 2012. To overturn the President’s memo 145 MPs need to approve the Bill without changes.