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"id": 190540,
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"content": "Hon. Members, I have another Communication to make. Hon. Members, you recall that on June 26th, 2008, Mr. Imanyara rose on a point of order and sought the guidance of the Chair on the functions and duties of the Prime Minister in the House. Mr. Imanyara stated that he sought the guidance because, in the Presidential Circular distributed to all Members of Parliament, the Office of the Prime Minister and the functions of the Office are defined. He stated that after the definition of the functions of the Prime Minister, which are the co-ordination and supervision of the execution of the functions and affairs of the Government, including those of Ministries, it ends with the words \"accountable to Parliament\" on the overall performance of the functions of the Prime Minister's office. Mr. Imanyara asked whether by being accountable to Parliament the Prime Minister was not, therefore, the Leader of Government Business in accordance with the Presidential Circular. Hon. Members, as we all know, the Office of the Prime Minister was introduced into the Constitution recently under our Statutes. Section 15(A) of the Constitution provides for the functions of the Prime Minister to be provided for by an Act of Parliament. Section 4 of the National Accord and Reconciliation Act sets out the functions of the Prime Minister. None of the functions listed thereunder directly makes any reference to the Prime Minister's functions in the House. The section also provides that the Prime Minister shall perform such other duties and responsibilities of his office as may be assigned to him by the President or under any written law. The Standing Orders, as might be expected, make no mention of the Prime Minister as they were made when the office did not exist. The Standing Orders did not anticipate the establishment of the Grand Coalition Government. Hon. Members, as the honourable Speaker ruled on 25th June, 2008, it is expected, with the appropriate provisions in the Constitution or laws, that the Standing Orders shall be overhauled and will set out the role of the Prime Minister in the House. At the present, however, on the matter of the position of the Leader of Government Business, neither the Constitution, nor Standing Orders defines who the holder of this Office shall be, even though both documents use the term. Hon. Members, it would appear that parallels are being drawn between the role of the Prime Minister in this House and the duties and the functions of the Prime Minister in other jurisdictions. The Prime Minister, in our context, is an extraordinary Office that came into being in circumstances which we all are familiar with. It is an Office which may have no exact equivalent in any other jurisdiction. It is an Office for which we will have to evolve our own practice and traditions. If we take the Westminster model as an example, we find that in the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the political leader of the United Kingdom. He acts as the head of Her Majesty's Government and is the de facto wilder of executive powers in the British Government, exercising most of the executive powers normally invested in the sovereign. At West Minster, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, which he heads, are accountable for their actions to Parliament, of which they are Members. There is, therefore, no doubt about who the Leader of Government Business is in the United Kingdom. A similar situation obtains in many jurisdictions with parliamentary systems. The position in Kenya, of course, is that in terms of our Constitution, the President is both the Head of State and the Head of Government. He is in strict terms the Leader of Government Business, but delegates this function to a Member of the Cabinet. In these circumstances, it is not July 3, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1617 the place of this House or the Chair for that matter, to organise the Government side of the House, neither is it for that matter, the place of this House or the Chair to organise the business of the Opposition. The Leader of Government Business in this House is such person as the Government itself determines. Indeed, in the not so distant past, hon. Members will recall that the holder of the Office of Leader of Government Business alternated, in the Seventh Parliament, between several Ministers over a fairly short period of time. The organisation of Government, as set out in the documents issued by the Executive is not a matter for debate or interpretation in this House. Hon. Members, in response to hon. Imanyara's request, it is the guidance of the Chair that in the current state of our laws and our Standing Orders, the Leader of Government Business is the person, whether it be the Vice-President, the Prime Minister or any other Minister, for the time being, designated by the Executive arm of the Government; none other than the President, because the President exercises executive powers in our country. For purposes of the business of this House, this remains the position until such time as changes in the law designate a particular office holder as the Leader of Government Business."
}