Jubilee Party Secretary General Jeremiah Kioni has blamed constitutional commissions and their leadership for failing to exercise the authority granted to them by the 2010 Constitution, citing ongoing challenges in representation and institutional effectiveness.

Speaking on a local media station on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Kioni expressed disappointment that key constitutional gains have not been fully realised 15 years after the Constitution’s promulgation.

“The issue of representation is still something that we fear. We had thought that by this time we would have dealt with the unequal levels of representation within our institutions, and especially within Parliament. That is still out there and pending,” Kioni said.

The former Ndaragwa MP directly criticised those charged with running constitutional commissions, saying they have failed to utilise their constitutional powers effectively.

“We had won the Constitutional Commission, which was supposed to have been another major achievement for us as a country. But those who have been charged with the responsibility of running those commissions are the ones who have failed us. Because they have failed to exert the authority that has been given to them by the Constitution,” he stated.

Kioni also acknowledged Parliament’s role in the failures, including his own performance during his tenure as an MP.

“Parliament also failed and has continued to fail. I was part of it, and I tried what I could. Maybe I should have done better also,” he admitted.

Oversight challenges

The Jubilee SG identified structural problems in how constitutional commissions are overseen, arguing that inadequate oversight mechanisms have weakened their effectiveness.

“One of the things that made the Constitutional Commission weak is the fact that while we provided very nicely for them in the Constitution, the oversight was not made as clear as it should be,” Kioni explained.

He revealed that during his tenure as chairman of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC), he had proposed creating specific parliamentary committees to oversee the commissions independently.

“We should have created specific committees in Parliament, and I know I put that motion and even those provisions when I was the chairman of CIOC. We needed them to be overseen by a committee in Parliament that was not under the departmental committees,” he said.

Budget dependency concerns

Kioni highlighted how budget dependency has compromised the independence of constitutional commissions, citing the example of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

“For example, when you talk about IEBC, IEBC is overseen by the Legal Affairs Committee. It is the same committee that has the AG’s office and all the other. So when they are robbing for money, you do not robbing money for IEBC. The IEBC money is robbed at a ministry,” he explained.

Executive interference

He further accused successive administrations of deliberately undermining constitutional commissions by placing them under ministerial control.

He argued that the original intention was to remove these commissions from executive control to better serve Kenyans’ interests.

“The original problem was that we needed to get these commissions away from the executive, control of the executive, so that they can address the issues of Kenyans better,” Kioni stated.

“But what happened is that slowly, every person who has come into the executive has made every attempt to put them under the ministry, under the PS, under the CS, under the PS. And that has denied Kenyans of perhaps gains that we should have seen,” he added.

Kioni suggested that stronger support for bodies like the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) could have prevented some of the recent challenges with police conduct.

“Maybe if we had been able to provide better for the IPOA. Not that I blame that aspect alone. Perhaps the killings that we saw by police officers may have been reduced substantially,” he stated.