House has no business reporting to PM

Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s lecture to MPs this week that they are meddling in development projects revealed a lack of clarity on the role of Parliament and his office. Mr Odinga was visibly frustrated. Many approved projects, he complained, are getting stuck in the mud.

He has warned before that unused development funds keep piling up at the treasury. Clearly, none of this is good. If projects keep stagnating, the country won’t prosper. And it makes no sense that, in a country like Kenya, money approved for projects should be returned unused. What’s going on?

The PM kicked up the storm during a conference on Tuesday at the Ministry of Roads. He said that many road projects are held back because contractors who fail to get tenders use MPs to frustrate progress. The MPs bring endless questions to Parliament regarding such contracts. Or they flood the Public Procurement and Oversight Authority with objections. The authority then might suspend the contract for months, throwing project schedules into disarray.

Mr Odinga had had it. “The work of supervision is invested in the office of the Prime Minister, not in Parliament,” he told MPs. “If an MP has questions […] he should raise it with the Prime Minister’s office.”

Er, not so fast, MPs responded later. Turkana Central MP Ekwee Ethuro explained their point well on NTV: The PM’s role is limited to the Executive, he said. “Parliament […] has sufficient capacity to interrogate and probe the Executive; and it’s not up to the Executive to interpret the limits of that oversight function.”

Here is the problem: The PM maintains that Parliament must not supervise the Executive. He is right. But MPs insist that their job is to exercise oversight; therefore, they must query the Executive. They, too, are right!

To adjudicate this might be as simple as calling in an English teacher. What is the difference between oversight and supervising? The dictionary suggests that whereas “oversight” is limited to observation and perhaps holding the actor to account, “supervision” goes further; it directs execution.

But the issue here is bigger than semantics. It calls for understanding the role of Parliament. Kenyans hire MPs to do four critical jobs: representation, legislation, oversight and resource allocation. Anything else is extracurricular. They are not hired to throw homecoming parties, fund funerals or perfect watermelons – that disturbing art of acting green in the day and red at night through the current referendum campaigns. None of this is in their job description. Anyone saying so is soaked in balderdash.

Throughout the Commonwealth, these four functions define Parliament. First, the people decide on how they want their affairs managed. Forty million people can’t fit in a hall to sort out their affairs. So, they elect a few “wise people” called MPs to represent them in Bunge. If MPs forget that representing constituents is their foremost duty, the business of Parliament is flawed, spectacularly.

Second, the MPs come to Parliament to legislate. They make laws. This is the most visible – and often ugliest – work of an MP. Constitution making is a good example. The bulk of laws are initiated by the Executive; because the people elect its head, the president, on a platform of his promised agenda. It becomes the task of Parliament to scrutinise his bills. The idea is to ensure that the proposed laws will enhance the people’s well being and are consistent with international standards.

Third, MPs come to Parliament to exercise oversight on the Executive. Mr Prime Minister, oversight means that Parliament must monitor government spending and performance by the Executive. The reason is to ensure that the Executive spends and performs in a responsible and accountable manner.

Parliament carries out this function by scrutinising the work of the Executive. It ensures that it does not infringe on the rights of citizens or waste State resources. Parliament also sees to it that whatever the Executive is doing is in the public interest. This is why the Executive brings a periodic report card to Parliament, MPs question ministers and their boss, set special commissions, propose remedial action and audit national accounts.

Therefore, the Efficiency Monitoring Unit and Inspectorate of State Corporations at the PM’s office are to help spruce up the Executive’s report card; Parliament has no business reporting to the PM.

Fourth, Parliament exists to ensure that national resources are allocated equitably. MPs approve and even allocate the revenue that Executive requires to implement its policies. This is why giving our Parliament teeth on budgetary issues was so important and overdue.

How can Wanjiku tell that Parliament is working well? Parliament should be representative, transparent, accessible, accountable and effective. A representative Parliament ensures equal protection and opportunities for all citizens. A transparent Parliament conducts business in the light of day, opening up to the country through diverse media.

An accessible Parliament involves the public and civil society. An effective Parliament functions like a business, with clear goals and measurable results. And an accountable Parliament answers to the electorate. MPs must accept that they serve at the pleasure of the people who elected them. In their performance and conduct, they are answerable to constituents. That is why Wanjiku must retain the right to fire her MP – and the Prime Minister.

But there is something else. The PM insinuated that MPs are getting paid by dubious men in smoky joints to ask specific questions on tendering processes. If this is true, then we have a very large problem.

The writer is an assistant professor of journalism; kodibarth@gmail.com