Africa-Press – Kenya. Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi on Tuesday, May 4, ruled that National Assembly could not amend the Building Bridges Initiative bill.
According to the speaker, the House would continue to debate the bill as submitted.
“Parliament has no role in the origination of the bill and is only required to introduce the bill and either pass or fail to pass it,” Muturi stated.
Further, Muturi disputed the issues of major errors within the document. He termed them as minor and mostly typographical.
“The errors have been observed to be inadvertent and mostly typographical or cross referential and that the text of the bill is sufficiently clear in what it tends to amend.
“The House will therefore continue considering the bill that was introduced and committed to the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC) as submitted by the IEBC,” Muturi stated.
The news comes as members of both the Senate and National Assembly had been at loggerheads on whether to amend the bill after it emerged that there were varied versions of the bill.
According to a report by JLAC, only 13 counties received and passed the correct version of the document. Among the counties which received the correct version include Mandera, Meru, Tharaka Nithi, Embu, Nyandarua, Nyeri, Murang’a, Kiambu, Turkana, Elgeyo Marakwet, Laikipia, Nakuru, and Siaya.
The bill also brought about internal wrangles within the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) as the members differed on whether to amend the contents of the bill.
Siaya Senator James Orengo and Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo were accused of betraying the party after they supported the declaration of 70 additional constituencies as unconstitutional.
This has led ODM to begin the process of kicking out Amollo from the (JLAC) committee where he served as Deputy Chairman. The party has suggested that the lawyer to be replaced with Ruaraka MP TJ Kajwang.
