It
seems that the coming year, 2016, will be full of political activities because
of the calls for a national referendum by both the Coalition for Reforms and
Democracy(Cord) and the Jubilee coalition. With a clear sense of certainty, the
changes to the constitution that was promulgated in August 2010 are imminent.
Amendments
to the constitution are needed and there is no doubt whatsoever on this. However,
we need to ask ourselves certain pertinent questions before we deliberate if
indeed a referendum should be given a go-ahead or not. In exploring the
possibility of having a national referendum, two relevant and significant
factors come into play. Firstly, the law itself will play a primary role by
laying out the conditions that are supposed to be fulfilled before amendments
to the constitution are made. Secondly, the financial costs need to be factored
in the drive for making changes to the constitution; the opportunity cost of
having and not having the referendum.
The
Cord coalition has been pushing for constitutional changes since last year by
drafting the Constitution Amendment Bill 2015 famously known as Okoa Kenya and
they have won the first round of the battle by acquiring 1.4 million signatures
and presenting the same bill to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission(IEBC). The next task for the Cord team will be to take the battle to
the county assemblies seeking to gain the support of twenty four of them. From the
county assemblies, the bill will proceed to the National Assembly whereby if
the amendments are adopted, the idea of a staging a referendum will be scuttled
but if it won’t adopt the proposals, the matter will be directed to the
electorate to decide on the changes.
The
Jubilee coalition is also pushing for changes to be made to the constitution
through its Boresha Katiba Initiative a move that is widely viewed as a
counter-strategy on the calls by the Cord brigade. The proposals by the two
coalitions seem to focus heavily on strengthening devolution, instituting a
high sense of efficacy on economic governance as well as economic management
and promoting ethnic equality. Cord’s proposals that are aimed towards sound
economic governance, devolution and ethnic balance include the following: increasing
the revenue allocation for the county governments by the national government
from the current 15% to 45%, counties should be guaranteed 20% of the revenue
from national resources within their jurisdiction, no single community should
take more than 15% of the appointments of any state organ and devolution of
some security functions. Its other proposal is the creation of the Ward
Development Fund to be managed by the Members of the County Assemblies(MCAs)
The
Boresha Katiba Initiative has the following proposals: increasing the revenue allocation
to 46%, Cabinet Secretaries should be appointed by Parliament, devolution of
the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, no community should enjoy more than
20% of appointments in any government organ and that Constituency Development Fund(CDF)
should be increased from 2.5% to 5%.
The
major hurdle is that the push for constitutional amendments will be used as a platform
for political revival for Cord and an event for political survival by the
Jubilee coalition. The proposals for the changes in the constitution will have
two battlefronts, the county assemblies and the national assembly. The reason
as to why I am classifying the 48 legislatures as battlefronts is because of
the enticements and packages that they have proposed for the occupants of these
legislative bodies.
Cord
has promised the MCAs of instituting a Ward Development Fund should the
amendments be made and being who they are, they will seize this opportunity
without any further thinking. The Jubilee coalition on its side, has promised
to increase the CDF allocation from 2.5% to 5% of the national revenue. What political
arithmetic exactly led to such baits? It is the philosophical ‘tyranny of
numbers’. Jubilee has the majority in the National Assembly and the proposal
for an increment in the CDF seeks to galvanize the support among its members.
Cord coalition knows that by having 24 governors on its side, marshalling
support among the MCAs is necessary and to make things easier they had to
include the proposal on the establishment of the Ward Development Fund. Approval
by the county assemblies will be a plus for Cord while a successful making of
amendments at the National Assembly will be a bonus for the Jubilee coalition.
In
my opinion, the amendments need to focus on strengthening some of the
institutions and the principles that govern their operations. One of the
institutions that has to be looked at is the legislative body, at the national
level and county level. The National Assembly should be properly down-sized to
around 200 members from the current 390. The number of the wards represented by
the MCAs should also be reduced but this ought to be done according to the
population density of the given areas so as to avert cases where it takes quite
a long time for people to access their services.
The
Senate should not be scrapped off. Instead, it should be strengthened and made
superior than the National Assembly. In fact, the Senate should be entrusted
with the powers of approving presidential appointments, approving bills that
have been passed by the National Assembly before their assent among other key
functions. Reducing the number of counties is not going to be easier than it is
imagined putting into consideration that Senators also have intentions of
pushing for a referendum and that also the Governors can marshal the MCAs to
thwart such efforts.
Most
importantly, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission needs to be made very
powerful so that the looters of public funds can feel its cutting edge. The move
to devolve its operations is timely in order to curb the rising cases of
corruption in the county governments. The proposals to tame ethnic dominance in
appointments to various state organs is welcome. This will ensure we have a
situation of near-equal-representation among all the ethnic groups.
The
proposals to increase the amount of national revenue allocated to counties is a
wise move. However, for devolution to work effectively, there is need to have a
lean, mean and clean staff in place. This implies that with the increment in
the allocation, very tough measures on graft need to be designed and
implemented and also reduction of employees who carry out similar duties has to
be checked due to the high incidences of job duplication.
My
take is that we should not have a referendum because of several reasons. One,
the referendum will cost Kshs.8 billion and this will divert resources that are
meant to spur economic growth and because the national debt is ever rising, the
government will have to borrow funds to finance the referendum and this will
further slow the economic progress. Secondly, a referendum will most likely
intensify ethnic hatred between some communities given that the current
administration has totally failed to steer inclusivity among the ethnic groups.
Thirdly, heightened political activity is likely to hamper investment especially
by foreigners.
Constitutional
amendments can be made within the confines of Parliament to avoid a
slowly-paced economic growth but since it is driven by political forces a
referendum can’t be whisked away. Our economy is held at ransom by the
politicians who are opportunists and will of course use the referendum issue to
gain political mileage.