Raila fails to address Parliament

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Wednesday failed to issue his weekly address to the House.

House Speaker Kenneth Marende told MPs that the Mr Odinga had written to the House saying that he would be absent and therefore unable to respond to MPs queries during his 45-minute slot called the Prime Minister’s Question Time.

Mr Odinga travelled overseas last week and this is the second week that he's not addressed Parliament.

The Standing Orders allow the Prime Minister to delegate the job to either of his two deputies.

“If the PM chooses to delegate or designate any of his deputies to respond to questions, then it is for him to take responsibility,” said Mr Marende. “It is not for me to compel the Prime Minister to come and issue statements in this House.”

Boni Khalwale (Ikolomani) had asked the Speaker to issue sanctions against the PM for failing to show up or delegate the job to his two deputies Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta.

The two deputies have been having a rocky political relationship with the Prime Minister. They have both resigned from their ministerial dockets but still held onto their deputy prime-ministerial positions saying that only Parliament can kick them out.

While Mr Kenyatta quit as Finance minister early this year, Mr Mudavadi quit his position as Local Government minister Wednesday. The two dockets are powerful as the ministers can exercise delegated powers, without having to look over their shoulders.

“If these two are alive and working, then why have the questions (and statements) not been delegated to them?” said Dr Khalwale.

Martin Ogindo (Rangwe) noted that Mr Mudavadi and Mr Kenyatta were in fact absent from the House proceedings and thus they could not effectively “deputise the Prime Minister”.

“These people are no longer ministers and yet they are not in the House to deputise the Prime Minister. I ask that you as the Speaker find their positions as unworthy and redundant,” said Mr Ogindo.

But the Speaker said the House rules were very clear and that MPs had other avenues which they could use, if they saw it fit, to address the failure of their questions being answered in the House.

MPs can censure ministers, have them kicked out of the House; they can also withhold the appropriation of budget money until their issues or concerns with the Executive are addressed.

The deputy prime ministers have insisted that only a censure by Parliament will kick them out of their positions.