The much anticipated Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report will be finally released on Tuesday and handed over to President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition Chief Raila Odinga, the BBI technical committee has announced.
At the same time, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) for National Unity Advisory Taskforce has urged Kenyans to ignore reports circulating on social media and other places claiming to be from it and instead wait for November 26 when the report will be made public.
Addressing a press conference on Friday at a Nairobi hotel, the BBI technical committee co-chairman and Garissa Senator Yusuf Haji said his team completed its task on October 23 and communicated the same to the Office of the President which in turn gave them an appointment slated for Tuesday.
“It is now our privilege to inform the public that an appointment to hand the report to his Excellency the President has been arranged for November 26,” Senator Haji said.
“We are immensely gratified by how the Kenyan people responded to our call for participation,” he added.
President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga are expected to jointly receive BBI task force report at State House.
The taskforce was gazetted on May 24, 2018, following the March 8 unity pact between President Kenyatta and Odinga, popularly known as the Handshake, after an acrimonious political fallout during the August 2017 General Election.
The taskforce’s mandate concluded on October 23 and for a month, they have been waiting to hand over their report.
Meanwhile, the task force has requested members of the press and the public to be aware of the flood of false reports that are circulating on social media claiming to be from the BBI technical team.
The misrepresentations, according to the team, are meant to sow discord and division among Kenyans at a time when there is a strong national consensus on the need of cohesion, honesty and ambition to change the country for the better.
“We urge the media and members of the public to get in touch with us to confirm the veracity of reports, letters and press releases claiming to be from BBI taskforce,” Haji who was accompanied by his co-chair Adams Oloo warned.
They were also flanked by joint secretaries Paul Mwangi and Ambassador Martin Kimani.
During their countrywide tours, the taskforce noted, the face of Kenya was captured with at least 7000 citizens from all ethnic groups, genders, cultures, and religious practices and different social and economic sectors coming forward eager to tell their experiences and solutions to the country’s national challenges.