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"id": 1056391,
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"speaker_name": "Kipipiri, JP",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Amos Kimunya",
"speaker": {
"id": 174,
"legal_name": "Amos Muhinga Kimunya",
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"content": "processes. On any Bill that is from outside, our Standing Orders are rather silent. Our current election law is also silent. Our Referendum Bill is still under process. We have some lacuna that we need to be guided on. I want to thank you, both Speakers of the National Assembly and the Senate for the efforts you have put so far in guiding the House in these untested times, when we are supposed to process this without delay yet we do not quite have tools in terms of how to do it. In the absence of a provision in the Standing Orders, luckily, the framers provided for invocation of Standing Order No.1 that gives you power to guide this House so that we do not have a situation where the House cannot move on account of lack of a provision in the Standing Orders on what to do. I want to thank you, Hon. Speaker, for that and our technical team, including the Clerks, for putting in place mechanisms for verification of all those Bills. As you rightly pointed out to us, some counties may have considered the premature Bill - the Bill that was incorporated within the Report. I want to draw the attention of Members to the fact that even as you consider the Bill, note that there is a difference between the Bill contained in the Report and the Bill I sent to the IEBC. We will consider the Bill that will be formerly introduced in this House. Nevertheless, the rest of the Report is good for background reading to put things into context. The last time we had this kind of situation was during the popular Punguza Mzigo Initiative, which had lots of inadequacies and grey areas. This has helped in terms of lessons learnt, and we have seen your pronouncement as partly coming from that initiative. Yesterday’s debate in the Senate brought out some of the issues. This afternoon, it might also bring out some issues so that by the time the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee retreats, all of us will be at liberty to also help them in thinking. We will not only refine the process so that we give Kenyans the law or the process in a way that cannot be contested, but we will also have clarified a few things for inclusion within our Referendum Bill by the time we bring it for Third Reading. At least, there are some lessons learnt through this process. I invite the House to candidly discuss some of these things with a view of figuring out how we can positively influence and expedite the process. Hon. Speaker, when Members bring petitions, they read them out themselves. When a stranger brings a Petition, you read it and introduce it in the House yourself. This is the situation we are in. A Bill has come from outside and although Hon. Junet is listed as a promoter, he is only part of a group of strangers of the BBI. Hon. Denis Waweru is not a Member of this House. Technically, this Bill is only coming here through introduction by the IEBC. We cannot, therefore, treat it the same way we treat other Bills. This is where we have the First Reading. So many days are set out in law. There is nowhere the Constitution says that a popular initiative should have 90 days and should be read or whether we should be approving a Report or a Bill. We cannot change it, whether we take it through the Second and Third Readings. There are small things that we want you to ventilate on then we put them together as part of this. Most importantly, we need to recognise that the promoters have gone through a process. They met all the waypoints. They have had their signatures and the Bill has been taken to the counties. They managed to convince all the counties. Forty-three counties have passed the Bill, which shows that there is a bit of effort in the whole country. We want to recognise all that effort. It is now our turn, as Parliament, to do our bit. Whether we pass it or not, it still goes ahead to a referendum. Members may then ask why we are discussing the Bill. It does not matter whether we pass it or not. The Constitution envisages a situation where a Bill could have issues that are not listed within Article 255, which requires a referendum. Our debate here would have been final and the Bill would be taken to the President for assent. However, because it contains issues and it is The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}