National assembly adjourns indefinitely ahead of elections
Members of Parliament follow proceedings as National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani unveils the Sh3.3 trillion Budget on April 7.
The National Assembly is set to adjourn sine die (indefinitely)later today ahead of the August 9, 2022 general election as the curtains on the 12th parliament come down.
The Senate is also set to adjourn indefinitely a week later.
Sine die, is a Latin word, borrowed and used in the parliaments of the commonwealth, which means without the designated date and time of the next meeting.
This was the sixth session of the 12th parliament that was inaugurated on August 31, 2017 following the 2017 general election.
This means that after today, the House can only convene for a special sitting on the request of the leader of majority to the House Speaker Justin Muturi if there is a matter that requires the intervention of the House and cannot therefore wait.
A proposal to have the calendar of the House extended by a week failed after MPs threatened to shoot it down forcing the leadership of the House to abandon the idea.
Speaker Muturi had argued that it was not proper for one House of parliament to adjourn sine die while the other is till in session. Parliament is the duality of the National Assembly and the Senate.
The 12th parliament was largely quiet and without drama compared to the 11th parliament that had its fair share of fist fights in the debating chamber especially during the passage of the Security Laws (Amendment) Bill in December 2014.
It shall, however, go on record that the 12th parliament altered the country’s debt ceiling twice- in less than three years- to allow the government room to accumulate the debt stock.
The House is adjourning after concluding business that is critical to the functioning of the next regime.
This includes the 2022/23 budget estimates, Appropriations Bill 2022, the Finance Bill, 2022 and the amendments to the Public Finance Management (PFM) (National Government) Regulations of 2015, through a legal notice, to increase the country’s debt ceiling to Sh10 trillion from Sh9 trillion that was enacted in November 2019.
The three Bills now await the signature of President Uhuru Kenyatta before they become laws.
Once signed into law, the Appropriations Act will give the government the legal force to spend the funds as appropriated by the National Assembly.
The Finance Act gives the government the authority to collect taxes to finance the budget for the year.
The amendments by the National Assembly on the PFM Regulations were sent to the Senate for concurrence.
If the Senate agrees with the National Assembly, then the country’s debt ceiling will have effectively increased to Sh10 trillion.
This will give the national administration that comes after the August 9, 2022 general election room to borrow more to finance the Sh846 billion deficit in the Sh3.33 trillion budget.
The House is also adjourning after passing the County Allocation of Revenue Bill (CARB) 2022 that will head back to the Senate, the originating House, for the onward transmission to the President for assent.
Once signed into law, the County Allocation of Revenue Act will allow the county governments to make the budgets for their next financial years.
This being an election year, the sittings of the House were interrupted by election-related activities including the party primaries and the official campaign period that officially started on May 29, 2022, in which the MPs play a critical role.
Nevertheless, the House adjourned without considering key elections related to legislative business.
The Elections (Amendment) Bill 2022 which was received on January 20, 2022 for publication, was not passed.
The Bill sought to make manual transmission of election results as the primary data to be used by the election officers for computing election results.
The House did not also pass five sets of election-related regulations submitted by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the Office Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP).
This was after the Delegated and Legislative Committee of the National Assembly recommended to the House to annul them.
The argument by the committee is that the regulations were presented to the House late, which is against the law that provides that any election related regulation must be presented to the House at least four months before a general election.
The House must then ensure that the regulations are adopted at least 60 days to the general election.
The affected regulations included the draft Elections (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, Elections (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, Elections (Voter Education) (Amendment) Regulations, Elections (Party Nomination and Party Lists) (Amendment) Regulations and the Elections (Technology) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
The committee also established that for instance, the Elections (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 sought to implement the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2022 that had not been enacted.
The Elections (Registration of Voters) (Amendment) Regulations sought to have voter registers available in all the polling stations for inspections yet not all polling stations have been gazetted by the IEBC.
The law provides that the voter register can only be made available for inspection to the polling stations that have been gazetted.
