Executive must not interfere with House teams
By Rawlings Otieno, February 8, 2025The 13th Kenyan parliament has been described as the most moribund and an appendage of the Executive in post-colonial history.
The MPs whose mandate is to represent, legislate, oversight and appropriate have entered into an unholy alliance with the Executive and only ask how high, when asked to jump.
In the Kenyan governance system, the legislative authority of the Republic is derived from the people and, at the national level, is vested in and exercised by Parliament and whose function among others is to protect the Constitution and promote democracy.
Following the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, Kenya ushered in a presidential system of governance. In this form of government, the executive branch is separate from the legislative branch. The head of the executive branch, usually called the president, has executive power but limited legislative power.
Article 124 of the Constitution states that each House of Parliament may establish committees, and shall make Standing Orders for the orderly conduct of its proceedings, including the proceedings of its committees.
Committees are a vital organ in the working processes of Legislatures, without which, the proceedings of a Legislature could grind to a halt for the sheer volume of activities that would have to be considered at Plenary.
Committees are agents, which enable Legislatures to organize their work in such a way as to perform numerous activities simultaneously and expeditiously.
The functions of committees include reviewing legislation, reviewing and approving the budget and expenditures, scrutinizing governance activities, policies and programmes.
Committees also assess whether such programmes and policies meet the intended objectives of legislation, policy frand development plans, conducting investigations on special issues, vetting and approving executive appointments and providing a platform for public participation in the execution of specified business.
These committees allow Parliament to manage its workload more efficiently and provide detailed scrutiny of legislative and policy matters that cannot be fully examined during regular parliamentary sittings
A committee is as good as it chairperson. In committees whose chairpersons are active, oversight is not only seen to be done but done with speed and precision. Such committees are countable in the 13th parliament.
In 2020, the then President Uhuru Kenyatta summoned Jubilee MPs to State House and unveiled a list covering 28 Departmental committees and membership to Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) which is the MPs employer.
At the time there were 32 committees in the National Assembly and the chair of three were reserved for the Minority in the House and one for an Independent MP
The MPs were dissatisfied with the manner in which the then President Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto (now President) dictated the leadership of the Committees. It is said that they read a prepared list of who will chair what and who will be their deputies.
President Ruto upon assuming office in 2022, summoned all the Kenya Kwanza MPs and the ones who also crossed over from Azimio
In an ideal situation, parliamentary committees should be allowed to function independently and that the membership of such committees should elect their chairs and deputies.
President Ruto took queue from his predecessor and picked all the chairs of the committees both at the National Assembly and at the Senate. During the constitution of the Committees especially at the Senate, one senator was always armed with a letter from the Speaker’s office to stand in for the absent Senator from Kenya Kwanza side.
While the ideal situation is for the committees to elect their chairs and deputies, in Kenya the President picks a line-up from State House. The net effect is, there is no oversight. The MPs in return gets tenders from the very people they are supposed to oversight.
As Parliament resumes from recess this coming week, it is imperative that the Executive should stop its interference with the formation of the House committees. An Executive that wants to work for its citizens cannot handpick the people to oversight it.
The independence of the executive and the legislature is supposed to reduce instances of abuse of power. The two arms, by the nature of their independence, can monitor and impose checks and balances on each other. Parliament should uses its supermajority vote to check on the presidency. The president uses his or her veto power to check on Parliament.
—The writer is the chairman of the Political Journalists Association of Kenya