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Constituency offices will now be used as venues for public participation exercises, National Assembly Clerk Samuel Njoroge announced yesterday.

Njoroge told a parliamentary leadership retreat in Naivasha, that proper mechanisms were being put in place to facilitate the plan within the next few days.

“In an effort to ensure that the public participation is effective and meets the laid-down regulations, the National Assembly will use constituency offices for public participation exercises,” Njoroge said.

The retreat in Naivasha brings together leadership of all committees and the leaders of the two sides in the House. National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula noted that the public participation exercise would be streamlined once the proposed Public Participation Bill is enacted.

Court challenges

“The proposed Bill that is before the Attorney General will seal all the loopholes in the public participation that have been causing confusion in our courts whenever matters challenging the exercise are before the Judiciary,” said Wetang’ula.

He called on the MPs to fast-track the process of enacting the legislation. Parliament has been struggling to align with the law in organising public participation exercises that has in some cases been challenged in court.

MPs applauded the decision to use constituency offices as venues for public participation.

Led by Emuhaya MP Omboko Milemba, they pointed out that the decision would also serve to create employment as personnel will be sought to facilitate.

“We support this decision because it will create job opportunities for our voters. The only thing we need to do is to streamline the process through legislation,” said Milemba, who is also a member of the Speaker’s panel.

The Clerk also instructed MPs to ensure that all office equipment in the offices was insured.