Women MPs allied to Ruto declare war on BBI report

Allies of Deputy President William Ruto yesterday launched a formal campaign to oppose the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report. 

They accused its proponents — President Uhuru Kenyatta and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader Raila Odinga — of failing to build consensus.

Speaking just a day after a group of leaders from pastoralist communities called for a debate on the report, the women MPs yesterday said the proposal to increase the number of lawmakers will increase the wage bill and expose Parliament to manipulation and control of political parties.

Under the umbrella body of Inua Mama — a group of women lawmakers associated with Deputy President William Ruto — the MPs said the proposals in the report launched by President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga at the Bomas of Kenya two weeks ago, risked rolling back on the gains made by the constitution.

The MPs are particularly concerned by what they termed as a failure by the BBI task force to address the two-thirds gender rule that has been a subject of court cases and even calls for the dissolution of Parliament, adding that the scrapping off of the county woman representative positions could lock women out of the decision-making processes.

“We interpret the proposal in the BBI as seeking to give inordinate power to political party leadership so that they can exercise control over MPs and the legislature as a whole,” said Nyandarua woman rep Faith Gitau who read the statement on behalf of the over 10 MPs.

Expansion of executive

Ms Gitau said that, while the report had proposed the expansion of the executive, there was no mention of how the positions would be shared equitably among men and women, same as that of the position of a governor and their deputy.

On Tuesday, pastoralists called for amendments to the report. The Pastoralists Parliamentary Group and the Frontier Counties Development Council listed 11 “irreducible minimums” for the BBI report before the region can back the proposal. Top on their agenda is to quash the “one man, one vote, one shilling”mantra that favours densely populated counties at the expense of sparsely populated regions.

“Let nobody ignore this group . .. We are not second class citizens,” Turkana governor Josphat Nanok said.

The leaders also included Mandera governor Ali Roba and former National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale.

“Not even a comma of our detailed presentation to the BBI committee ended up in the report. The window that MPs used yesterday to include the constituency fund is the same one we want to use to include the issues of the pastoralists,” Mr Duale, who is also the Garissa Town MP, said.