PSC members deserve credit

Kenya’s 10th Parliament rarely does anything positive, but one of those rare moments was the report members of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on constitution review drafted during a retreat at Naivasha’s Great Rift Lodge. Before the retreat, Parliament had received a lot of deserved flak because of its perceived shortcomings.

These included the maize and oil saga; majority of Members of Parliament refusing to pay taxes. They also looked irresponsible as some of them avoided decisions by disappearing from Parliament ahead of crucial voting. In roughly ten days, however, the PSC seemingly redeemed the honour of the MPs.

Parliament had erred in passing an Act which placed excessive faith on a Committee of Experts (CoE). It did not even provide adequate time for people to receive and discuss CoE draft recommendations.

This made it appear as if the entire exercise was designed to railroad Kenyans into accepting, whatever the CoE proposed. And the CoE, at best being a technical committee rather than a philosophical one, proved to be oblivious to Kenya’s socio-cultural and political environment. Few, if any, of the CoE members appeared to have the pulse of the Kenyan public and many were seemingly driven by external abstractions. As a result, the CoE came up with a disharmonious draft despite labelling it “harmonised”.

Enough questions were raised regarding the thrust and intent of the document with two main reservations being clear. First were on the type of executive and the kind of devolution because the CoE recommendations on both appeared to be based on inherent unfairness and failure to consider implementation obstacles. It recommended a governing structure, including a “panya” route to power through an unelected prime minister, hinging on shaky constitutional foundations.

Advocates of the “panya” route either believe that they cannot win or are incapable of winning presidential votes. The CoE also tried to “legislate” details instead of proposing broad guidelines on agreeable ways of running the country. Failing to consider the likely socio-political and financial costs of its draft, it gave an impression that it was creating room for those lucky enough to become officials in the new structures to “eat” public monies.

With those concerns, the PSC members went to Naivasha seemingly a divided lot, only to show remarkable maturity. The debates on where to place executive powers led to three options, including two “panya” routes to power. First, the first “panya” route, was to have a divided executive in which an unelected prime minister would share powers with an elected president.

Second, the other “panya” route, was to give all executive powers to a political party leader with the most number of MPs, although not directly elected by voters, while the elected president becomes purely ceremonial. The third option was to ignore both “panya” routes and place executive powers in a president elected by Kenyans.

At Naivasha, members of PSC did themselves and the country proud. First, they streamlined the document by removing excessive baggage from constitutional framework. Second, they rightly rejected the divisive idea of two drafts at the referendum.

Third, they showed little interest in the idea of a divided executive or any “panya” route to power. Fourth, they faced the issue of equality of votes and the levels of government. In all these, the PSC acquitted itself well at Naivasha. Why did Parliament waste time and resources hiring the CoE to spend months producing constitutional “abstractions”? All that was needed was for the PSC members to spend some days in Naivasha.