Lawmakers' work is to legislate, oversight and represent, period!

When Kenyans bequeathed themselves a new Constitution in 2010, the country sought to cut links with patronage that had plagued its body politic for almost half a century.

With the concentration of power and resources at the centre, development and social services had effectively become tools of campaign, vote-buying and blackmail. That the extent and magnitude of resource allocation was heavily influenced by political benevolence, especially of the presidency, was a gaping drawback.

To cure this malady, the people opted for a pure presidential and devolved system of government, where separation of powers, independence of institutions, public participation, rule of law, equitable development, ethical leadership and devolution of power and resources reigned supreme.

However, the political class and a section of the people had not yet conquered the hangover of politics steeped in patronage and clientelism. The legislators, left stranded at the sudden turn of constitutional history, have been waging protracted battles against the scrapping of the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF), which was declared unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction.   

Despite the structural changes introduced in 2015 to align it to the Constitution, the court once again reaffirmed in 2024 that the NG-CDF remained an illegal kitty on account of its violation of the principles of devolution and entrenching duplication of roles.

The most resounding reason for this declaration was that the architecture of our constitution made the fund run afoul of the doctrine of separation of powers, which delineates the executive, legislature and judiciary’s distinct roles.

To ensure checks and balances, the executive implements policies and enforces the law, the judiciary interprets the law, and the legislature legislates, oversights and represents the people.

Therefore, its nobility notwithstanding, for legislators to immerse themselves in the implementation of policies through NG-CDF is to assault the Constitution by an institution that bears a higher moral responsibility and fidelity to the law.  

How can one implement and oversight at the same time? This is the infamous ‘mongrel’ of a government that we must reject in all its manifestations. 

However, in their usual line of public defenses, the MPs often claim that they assume an disproportionate brunt of monetary expectations and development support from the people.

While the reasons are legitimately justified within the prism of political reality, the country must painfully adjust and submit itself fully to the rule of law.

It is worth noting that the most consequential government policy is the budget, preceded by a budget policy statement which gives a glimpse of the government’s broad strategic priorities and policy goals for both developmental and recurrent spending.

In their wisdom, the framers of the 2010 Constitution vested in MPs, as the representatives of the people, far-reaching powers in the budget-making and approval process as set out in Article 95. They determine the allocation of national revenue, appropriate funds for expenditure and oversight of national revenue and its expenditure.

Through the Budget and Appropriations Committee, the National Assembly is comprehensively appraised of the budget components and as such, greatly influences resource allocation. Hence, it is legally unsound that beyond that point, the MPs also want to be the implementers of a percentage of that budget.

This information is a crucial piece of civic knowledge for the common person who still holds in high esteem NG-CDF’s impact in grassroots development, forgetting that MPs have a sacrosanct duty to hold the executive to account.

Suddenly, the clamour for implementation and control is also percolating down to the devolved units where Members of County Assemblies are demanding a chunk of the county budgets to be allocated to ward funds so that they can spearhead development in their respective wards.  

Indeed, the cohabitation between the executive and the legislature in the previous constitutional dispensation granted the executive a leeway to escape oversight while the legislature capitulated to the whims of the executive. As such, the failed attempts to legitimise NG-CDF post-2010 are quid-pro-quo arrangements between the executive and the legislature to blur the lines of checks and balances.  

Sadly, the NG-CDF disbursement has also been dangled as either a carrot or weaponised as a stick by the executive in so many instances when it seeks to arm-twist the legislature in its decisional independence.

It is this sickening tendency that has seen MPs troop to the State House, the seat of the executive, with begging bowls seeking development for their constituencies when they have abdicated their institutional role as the focal point of budget appropriation.

The National Assembly has unwittingly become a national shame, discarding all pretenses of checking the excesses of the executive and becoming the weakest link in our country’s governance structure.

Therefore, as the highest oversight organ on behalf of the people, Parliament must be guarded at all costs from becoming an appendage of the executive.

If push comes to shove, a huge signage of Parliament’s job description should be erected within the House to remind the MPs of their roles as indicated: You are here to legislate, represent, and oversight, period!

- nyaindamanass96@gmail.com