Luke Awich and Harrison Kivisu @PeopleDailyKe
Members of the County Assemblies (MCAs) across the country are piling pressure to have the General Election date pushed to March, 2018, from August next year, when the five-year term for elected representatives expires.
They are opposed to the August, 2017 date set by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) claiming it does not give them the five-year term provided for in the Constitution.
The more than 2000 MCAs attending a conference in Mombasa challenged senators to take up the matter with IEBC and other relevant stakeholders to craft a constitutional path to push the date forward, maintaining they are not ready to cede part of their term.
County Assembly Forum (CAF) chairman Nuh Nassir said they had written to IEBC requesting for dialogue on the elections date.
Nassir said: “IEBC must know, whoever is elected (in August 2017 polls) comes to office in March, 2018. The Constitution has granted a five-year term limit for MCAs, those offices become vacant in March, 2018.”
He was speaking yesterday during the opening ceremony of the Inaugural Legislative Summit which brings together (Continued from page 1)
Senators and all the MCAs at a Mombasa hotel.
The function, which excluded all governors came after the Governors Devolution Conference that was held in Meru last month. The main agenda was strengthening the legislative and oversight role in devolved governance between MCAs and Senators. Senators were also excluded from the governors’ summit.
Members of National Assembly have been mulling over whether to move the polls from August to December, 2017. Ugenya MP David Ochieng’s Bill to extend the date of elections by four months attracted mixed reactions from both sides of the House.
Ochieng’s Bill proposes to move the date of the elections from the second Tuesday of August to the third Monday of December.
The Bill, which seeks a solution to the hot debate of term limits, was faced with several hurdles that include a mandatory referendum since a change in the poll date would extend the President’s term, which can only be done through a plebiscite.
There would also be the prospect of having to appoint a new electoral commission or extending the tenure of the current members, whose term end in November.
MCAs warned they would go to court to challenge the IEBC August 2017 date and seek legal interpretation on the matter. At the same time, governors were castigated at the conference over misuse of county funds.
Speakers had no kind words for governors whom they accused of misappropriating funds on poorly planned development projects.
Led by Speaker Ekwee Ethuro, the Senators told governors to be ready to account for every shilling devolved to their counties and not to wage war against officers who the Constitution mandate to hold them to account.
Senate Leader of Majority Kindiki Kithure told governors not to devolve corruption to the counties. “There is looting of public money in our devolved units. Corruption is common place, it has permeated both levels of government, national and county. We thought county governments had the opportunity to demonstrate to us how to govern regions,” said Kindiki.
Mombasa’s Hassan Omar said senators would continue to oversight counties and push governors to account for the billions of shillings received for devolved functions. Omar, who has also declared he will contest against Joho in the next polls, insisted the governors have mismanaged funds and should be held to account.
“We are protectors of county governments and devolution, we are not protectors of the governors. Don’t confuse our mandate with conflict of interest,” said Omar. Joho, the host governor, who was slotted in the programme as one of the speakers skipped the event without apology.
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