Cord to meet MPs, governors in bid to save CDF, Raila Odinga says

Cord leader Raila Odinga has assured MPs that the coalition will seek ways to save the Constituency Development Fund that was declared unconstitutional by the High Court.

Mr Odinga said Cord will meet MPs, senators and governors to discuss ways of securing the CDF system.

“In the meantime, we have tasked the Committee of Experts of the Okoa Kenya Movement to draft proposals of amendment that will be part of the negotiations to secure and entrench the CDF in the Constitution,” he said in a statement issued by his spokesman Mr Dennis Onyango on Sunday.

Mr Odinga said the fund must be aligned to the constitution and this can only be done through a referendum.

“Although the court found the system as unconstitutional, it has given the National Government 12 months to regularize the matter and align it to the new constitutional dispensation. This however can only be done through a referendum,” Mr Odinga said.

High Court judges Isaac Lenaola, Mumbi Ngugi and David Majanja declared CDF illegal in a ruling delivered last Friday.

The judges said the law setting up the fund was faulty.

(READ: High Court declares CDF illegal)

They said the Constitution had been violated by failure to involve the Senate when the law was amended two years ago.

The fund was set up 12 years ago.