This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
Published on August 13, 2019, MP Jeremiah Kioni, chairman of the parliamentary Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee, has expressed concerns that the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) team's activities are illegal and may fail due to lack of public participation.
The BBI task force, appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga after their March 9th, 2018 handshake, has been conducting public hearings since last year. However, Kioni believes that the team's activities are not in line with the law and will ultimately be polarized and face legal hurdles.
According to Kioni, the BBI recommendations stand a chance of success only if they are routed through Parliament. He also foresees a situation where the proposals submitted by the team will be thrown out due to their illegality, which will deal a significant blow to Uhuru and Raila who have already endorsed the team's activities.
"Constitutional amendment must have public participation," Kioni emphasized. "I want to say this in good time, BBI is not public participation. The public participate in a thing that they know. In the BBI, we didn’t know what we were participating in," he added.
Kioni also proposed that the constitution amendment process should focus on restructuring the country's leadership model into a parliamentary system, which he believes will solve the problem of the divisive nature of Presidential elections.
"The major issue now that we can deal with is move from presidential to parliamentary system. Such a system will bring a lot of inclusivity. Another issue is to mandate the executive to pick Cabinet ministers from Parliament. That will bring inclusiveness. All communities will feel included," he said.
