Legal timelines begin with submission of BBI signatures to IEBC

The submission of 4.4 million signatures supporting the BBI constitutional amendment drive kicks off a long road ahead to a referendum mid-2021 even as the electoral agency on Friday insisted that they will not move an inch until Treasury allocates them money for the verification.

While Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati did not state how much they will require for the verification, the agency had asked for Sh35 million to verify signatures by the Dr Ekuru Aukot-led Punguza Mzigo initiative last year.

The commission has three months — with the timeline kicking off from Friday when the signatures were submitted — to ensure that the initiative is backed by at least one million registered voters.

“We shall now proceed and request for a budget from the National Treasury. As soon as we get the budget, then we shall now get a team. Our team is already available. We have a referendum committee which will undertake the exercise of signature verification,” Mr Chebukati told journalists outside the IEBC offices in Nairobi when they received the signatures in batches from each of the 47 counties. 

He said: “As a commission our work starts here, after receiving the signatures. The soft copy will save us the trouble of typing out the hard copies.”

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) secretariat cleaned up the 5.2 million signatures that endorsed the Bill, and weeded out 800,000 that had entry irregularities. 

On Friday, BBI secretariat co-chairs Junet Mohamed and Dennis Waweru were upbeat of what they said was an excellent job that is  now in the hands of the commission.

Minimum requirement

“We have here 4.4 million signatures, way above the 1 million minimum requirement. For ease of processing, and because we need the IEBC to take the shortest time possible, we have given you a soft copy version of these signatures,” said Mr Waweru, who is also the former Dagoretti South MP.

The BBI team estimates that the referendum will happen between April and June 2021. 

On Friday, the IEBC chairman was quick to clarify that the money they are asking for the verification was different from what they will require if the Bill is endorsed by the county assemblies and Parliament to go to a referendum. 

The IEBC has quoted a Sh14 billion figure for the plebiscite, a sum ODM leader Raila Odinga said can come to as low as Sh2 billion if the commission cuts on wastages. 

The Chebukati team has already proposed use of locally-procured ballot papers as a way to save on costs. 

“After the Bill comes from the county assemblies and Parliament, it will then go to the President then to us to frame the referendum questions. When we get there, we will then talk about the (cost of) referendum,” Mr Chebukati said.

The verification, Mr Chebukati said, will entail ensuring that those listed as having supported the document are actually registered voters in existing polling stations the commission has. 

In the Punguza Mzigo case, the commission published the list of the 1.4 million the team said supported the initiative and gave Kenyans 21 days to verify that their names were not listed in error if they had not appended their signatures. 

“We shall ensure that the Bill that Kenyans signed for on this document is the same one that has been handed to us before we begin the process,” the IEBC chief said. 

Mr Chebukati asked Kenyans to avoid speculation on the verification process, promising periodic updates from the commission even as he promised adherence to the Covid-19 regulations in the exercise.

After the verification of signatures, the IEBC will submit the Bill to the 47 county assemblies and the regional Houses will have three months within which to consider the Bill.

Immovable deadline

If more than half (24) pass the Bill, it will be introduced to the Senate and the National Assembly.
“A Bill to amend this Constitution shall not be called for second reading in either House within ninety days after the first reading of the Bill in that House,” the Constitution says.

This means the least time Parliament can take is 90 days, assuming all the other process are cramped into one day after the immovable deadline between the first and second readings.
The timelines get murky from here.

The Constitution does not say how long Parliament should take, after passing the Bill, to pass it on to the President, or then how long the President shall take once that Bill is on his desk.

It also does not state the period for introduction of a draft Bill in Parliament upon approval by county assemblies. 

Two committees of the National Assembly have been ordered by Speaker Justin Muturi to harmonise laws on the referendum in what is then expected to guide these and other process in the long road to amending Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. 

Legal experts have, however, in such cases, insisted that the process, if timeline is not stated, is guided by the principle of “reasonable timeline” in the supreme law. 

Once the President passes his message to the IEBC to hold a referendum on the receipt of the Bill from Parliament, the commission has 90 days within which to hold a referendum.

On Friday, Mr Waweru was confident that the BBI process will sail smoothly all the way to a referendum. 

“To those few who think they can successfully oppose this process, we want to tell you that the train has left the station. Your best shot now is to catch a fast motorbike or taxi and run after the train because we are not going to stop,” said Mr Waweru.