Jubilee, Cord in battle over key watchdog jobs

The battle for the control of powerful watchdog committees is set to dominate proceedings in Parliament on Tuesday when the names of proposed members are tabled in the House for debate.

Jubilee and Cord are locked in a stalemate over the composition of the Budget Committee, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Public Investments Committee (PIC). Cord insists that as the opposition in Parliament, it ought to have a majority in the committees to provide effective oversight over government spending and operations. It argues that the government cannot audit itself.

But Jubilee maintains that the Standing Order that explicitly provided for the opposition to provide the leadership and majority in the watchdog committees was removed during the last Parliament and as a result, Cord’s demands are not backed by any law.

National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi told the Nation that he expects the majority leader, Mr Aden Duale, and the Minority leader, Mr Francis Nyenze, to meet and agree on the composition of the committees before the nominees are tabled in Parliament.

“The leadership of the two sides must be prepared to sit down and agree on the lists. What I have said is that I am not going to allow myself to be dragged into partisan politics. I will strictly go by what is provided for in the Constitution and the Standing Orders in making my rulings,” Mr Muturi said.

PAC is considered powerful because it examines government expenditure, often going after individuals who are deemed to have misappropriated taxpayers’ money. PIC has authority to investigate how taxpayers’ money is spent.

By virtue of its comfortable majority, the Jubilee Coalition argues that it should dominate the committees as it does the House. However, it has ceded the leadership of the two watchdog committees to Cord.

This issue is understood to have been the subject of a three-hour meeting of the House Business Committee where the leaders were unable to break the deadlock.

Mr Katoo ole Metito, the Jubilee Chief Whip, said on Thursday that the coalition had agreed to let Cord have 13 out of the 27 slots available.

Jubilee claims to have already submitted the names of its nominees to the Clerk, while Cord insists a compromise must be reached.

“Whoever engineered the passing of these Standing Orders, I think was mischievous,” Gwasi MP John Mbadi said last week. “I think he was up to no good, whether he was from which side of our political equation. My belief is that these Standing Orders need a lot of fine-tuning; they need a lot of amendments.”

He said many of the members of the 10th Parliament saw the amended Standing Orders after they were re-elected.

The Standing Orders were passed in Parliament on the night of January 9 with a small number of MPs in the House, and this was among the last functions of the 10th Parliament.

Speaking in Parliament last Thursday, Deputy Minority Leader Jakoyo Midiwo said the provisions on what side of the House ought to lead the committees were left out because the drafters of the new orders wanted a separation of powers between the Executive and Parliament.

This, he argued, was the basis upon which the Minority wants to play the role of the opposition.

“As the opposition, we must check what the government does,” Mr Midiwo said.

“Why would a government that has been given an overwhelming mandate by the people of Kenya not be (overseen)?” he asked. “ It is suspect. Do you want to loot? What do you want to do with the mandate given to you by the people of Kenya that you don’t want the people, through their representatives, to do?”

Mr Midiwo argued that there would be no point in allowing Cord to chair the watchdog committees, while having a Jubilee majority as this would create an opportunity for him to be overruled.

He said if Cord is denied the majority from the onset, then the Cord chairmen would be effectively rendered toothless, meaning that the Opposition will be unable to play its role.