Okoa Kenya works with electoral team on referendum details

Kenyans will be asked to approve changes to the Constitution to ensure that future elections are conducted electronically and 85 per cent of funds allocated to county governments go towards developments if the referendum push succeeds.

The Okoa Kenya Movement spearheading the referendum campaign is considering several proposals from Kenyans to be included in the draft to be presented to Kenyans to vote for or against.

One of the proposals received by the Citizens Forum is that Kenyans found to have stashed illegally acquired money in foreign banks be jailed for life.

“People seem deeply outraged by corruption and attempts to silence the media and they are asking for drastic measures. They want a clear law spelling out a time frame within which those holding money abroad must return it, failure to which they face a life time in jail,” said the chairman of the Okoa Kenya Movement Paul Mwangi.

He said there are several other “significant and interesting views” coming from the public, which his committee is studying.

These include a petition that voter registration, voter identification, voting and vote counting be done electronically. This would mean that should systems fail as happened in the last General Election, the vote would automatically stand cancelled.

There is also a proposal that while money to counties should be raised from 15 per cent to at least 40 per cent, 85 per cent of the funds should go to physical development projects, with only 15 per cent being spent on salaries.

Mr Mwangi said there is also a proposal to recast the relationship between the Senate and the National Assembly to make them check each other while both jointly and independently check on the Executive.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND SENATE

In this arrangement, each Act of Parliament would be debated by each of the houses before being rejected or adopted and taken to the President for assent.

If a Bill comes from the Executive and is taken to the Senate, it would be debated then passed to the National Assembly.

Ordinary Bills must be passed by 50 per cent of either house while constitutional bills would require a two-thirds majority to be passed.

Should the movement adopt the proposals, judges of the Supreme Court will serve for life. The proposal, which Mr Mwangi says his team is studying and will be seeking more views on, is seen as a way to guarantee total independence of the Judiciary.

Okoa Kenya says voters are strongly pushing for a US-style First Amendment, which would bar the National Assembly and the Senate from legislating any law on media freedom. It also proposes the creation of a body to allocate and electronic media frequencies to prevent interference by the government.

“We created the Citizens Forum to act as a platform through which we could involve wananchi and get feedback, and we are glad it is working. We have received useful views and we are taking many of them on board. This is why we had a provision for ancillary amendments that will take care of these emerging issues,” Mr Mwangi said.

TECHNICAL COMITTEE

The proposals come as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission prepares for a referendum, with the appointment of a technical committee.

The commission’s spokesperson Tabitha Mutemi said the team is headed by the commission’s director for legal and public affairs, Praxedes Tororey.
She said the electoral commisison is ready and has the capacity to conduct a referendum.

Mr Mwangi said his team had held several meetings with the electoral commission committee.

“We have been meeting with them because we want to ensure that the outcome of our work meets the commission’s requirements,” he said.

“We have been consulting them at every step of our work and I must say our engagements with them have been very fruitful.”