This archive report was first published on 30 November 2019.
On Friday, November 30, 2019, a heated debate erupted among Jubilee legislators over the fate of the Building Bridges Initiative report.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria sparked the controversy by suggesting that the report should be taken to parliament, citing the unnecessary expenditure of billions of shillings to take the document back to the public.
"It was just the other day we spent Sh500 million collecting views on the same initiative. Why would we again want to spend more on a referendum when we can easily get everything done through Parliament where we are the people's representatives?" Kuria asked.
However, Kiambu Woman Representative Gathoni Wamuchomba dismissed Kuria's proposal, labeling MPs as 'political thugs' who could be compromised and therefore not trusted to undertake the process.
"We cannot allow this process to be left to these political thugs and it should be left to the people who are supreme on matters Constitution," Wamuchomba asserted.
Her remarks attracted the ire of MPs Gichimu Githinji and Wangui Ngirichi, who came to Kuria's defense, arguing that they were simply exercising their democratic rights by supporting the report's passage through parliament.
Meanwhile, Deputy President William Ruto, who had earlier favored tabling the report in parliament, changed his tune and welcomed the proposal for a referendum, as championed by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
However, Ruto warned that the referendum would be best done after arriving at a consensus to avoid dividing the country.
