Thursday, February 18, 2021 – County Assemblies will have to pass or reject the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) within 30 days due to its urgency instead of the 90 days given by the Constitution.
Members of Parliament made the decision yesterday to fast-track the BBI process and to pressure counties to expedite the debates.
The Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee (CIOC), in a joint meeting with Justice and Legal Affairs Committee (JLAC), said there was a need to reduce debating time to a month.
The joint committee also presented amendments of the BBI that will expunge some detailed procedures on how county assemblies process the bill.
“The amendments seek to remove detailed procedures on how the County Assemblies process a bill, to amend the Constitution under the popular initiative (article 257).”
“It was agreed that the Bill should be processes under the County Assemblies Standing Orders and the provisions in the Referendum bill.
“The amendments also propose to reduce the period within which a County Assembly must consider the Bill to 30 days,” read the amendment.
This came at a time when seven counties officially passed the proposal with Nairobi County Assembly holding its public participation exercise yesterday at Charter Hall, Nairobi.
The committees also agreed not to give IEBC the authority to govern how the referendum is done claiming it would only delay the passage of the Bill.
“The amendment seeks to set reasonable timelines for filing and hearing of referendum petitions at the High Court cognizant of the fact that time is an essential resource,” read the document.
E! News Blog
.jpg)
0 Comments