Bankers oppose more powers for MPs as real estate investors welcome housing fund plan

Bankers and micro-finance institutions are opposed to the vesting of too much power in parliament and denying the same to Treasury and the Central Bank of Kenya.

They see the new draft as imposing extra costs to taxpayers and robbing critical offices of power to take important decisions.

Further they wondered why parliament should presume oversight for institutions in which it had no expertise.

Appointment of chairman for the Central Bank, they argued, would politicise the institution and impose unnecessary costs for a role that could not be properly defined.

“Parliament cannot be experts in every situation. It should accept that other institutions should be facilitated to play their roles of efficiently managing this country.  We should limit the role Parliament oversight should play,” said Mr John Wanyela, the CEO of the Kenya Bankers Association.

The newly published draft constitution proposes that there will be a controller of budget (COB) who is charged with overseeing the implementation of the national budget and is ultimately answerable to parliament.

The holder of the office is supposed to ensure that this is in accordance with the proper parliamentary bills and providing accounts of actual as opposed to budgeted expenditure.

The draft law orders that the COB shall report to parliament within two months of the end of the financial year which is by August 31 of every year, to submitted his report.

To accomplish this within two months of end of fiscal year, critics say, would require a hefty amount of resources for this office including hiring of numerous accountants and premises to police each and every transaction in government and regional institutions.

The CEO of Association of Microfinance Institutions (AMFI), Mr Benjamin Nkunga, said that too much power had been given to parliament at the expense of the treasury.

He noted: “while the devolution of power is good, parliamentary role in some specific areas need to be controlled as well for we are yet to see serious people in government.”

The major change with regard to revenue collection and usage is on the formation of the National Revenue Allocation which is intended to ensure that the sharing is equitable as between the national government and the various levels of devolved government.

For the first time, the Central Bank of Kenya is to have a chairperson of the Board rather than the current situation where there the Governor is both the chief executive and the chairman of the board – an arrangement that has been criticised for lacking checks and balances in the institution.

Members of the board will be appointed by the president but with the approval of the national assembly.

A governor can be appointed for only one term of six years.