Economy

Team picked to set rules on diaspora voting in 2017 poll

votes

The Foreign Affairs ministry has picked a task force to prepare rules for Kenyans in diaspora to participate in the 2017 General Election. PHOTO | FILE

The Foreign Affairs ministry has set up a 10-member team to draft guidelines on how the close to 600,000 Kenyans living abroad will vote in the next General Election.

The task force, chaired by Foreign Affairs diaspora and consular affairs director Washington Oloo, has been handed a three-year renewable term to finalise its work.

The Kenya Gazette notice published by Labour Cabinet secretary Kazungu Kambi said his ministry would meet the task force’s expenses.

“The costs incurred by the committee, including but not restricted to facilitation and payment of allowance in respect of the members and secretariat of the committee, shall be defrayed from voted funds of the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Services,” read the notice.

The guidelines prepared by the task force would pave the way for Kenyans living abroad to participate in the 2017 General Election or any referendum organised before that period.

In the last General Election, Kenyans in the diaspora were barred from casting votes for their preferred presidential candidate following unpreparedness by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Despite the 10th Parliament passing rules to guide the registration of voters abroad, the Cabinet opted not to approve the listing on realising that IEBC did not have structures and mechanism in place to facilitate the process.

Aside from financial and time constraints, the electoral commission faced logistics challenges in conducting the massive exercise of registering voters locally and abroad.

The task force is expected, among other things, to advise on profiling of Kenyans in the diaspora who are eligible to vote. It would also establish the extent to which Kenyans living abroad could “progressively participate in General Elections and Referenda”.

Other members of the task force are Lucy Kiruthu, Gregory Somba, Joseph Kanyiri, Scholastica Ndambuki, Dennis Muhambe, Karen Rono, Kariuki Kimemia, Immaculate Kassait and Peter Oduge.

Kenyans in the diaspora play a key role in growth of the economy having remitted an estimated Sh1.3 trillion in 2014 alone.