Economy

Eyes on county assemblies as IEBC clears BBI Bill

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President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister display a copy of BBI Report during the presentation at Kisii State Lodge. PHOTO | PSCU

County assemblies Tuesday became the new centre of focus in the push for a referendum to change the Constitution after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) handed them a draft Bill as proposed by the Building Bridges Initiative(BBI) task force.

The IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati submitted to the 47 counties the BBI draft Bill for approval. It will require two thirds or 24 counties to approve the Bill before Kenyans can take a vote to approve or reject it in a referendum.

Mr Chebukati said the commission, through an interim verification of data captured as of January 19, 2021, has confirmed that the initiative has been supported by 1,140,845 registered voters.

Article 257(4) of the Constitution requires that any push for constitutional changes by way of popularinitiative be supported by signatures of one million registered voters.

“This is therefore to notify you that the initiative has met the requisite threshold as provided under Article 257(4) of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010.

Mr Chebukati said the Speakers of County Assemblies are required to submit the decisions of their County Assemblies to the Speakers of the National Assembly and the Senate within three months of the date of the IEBC letter.

The IEBC undertook a verification exercise to ascertain whether the BBI is supported by one million registered voters.

The signature verification initiative was promoted by BBI secretariat co-chairpersons Denis Waweru and Junet Mohamed.

“Today marks a great milestone for the BBI process. With the clearance from IEBC, we now have a short time to have the BBI referendum Bill tabled at all County Assemblies,” Mr Waweru said in a statement.