Controversial Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria has dismissed women parliamentarians' concerted efforts to achieve the minimum one-third requirement of either gender through the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2018.
Women MPs have been pushing through their umbrella body Kenya Women Parliamentarians (Kewopa), to have the constitution amended to create special seats for women through nominations to bridge the gender gap.
However, Kuria speaking on Wednesday during an interview on Citizen TV's JKL show termed the nomination of more women into Parliament as 'valueless'.
"We have 1,450 MCAs elected by the people and an additional 1,000 who are nominated. We are yet to see value for money for those nominated members. Is this the same model we want to bring to parliament? It has been tried but it is not working," said Kuria.
Kuria blamed the dilemma the current Parliament is faced with as pertaining to the gender requirement to misinterpretation of the law.
He said that there are other alternatives to empower women like the use of political parties which women fear could be prone to abuse by the widely patriarchal political outfits.
The MP who is known to shoot from the hip also dared anyone to go to court to have the Parliament dissolved on the basis of being unconstitutionally constituted saying he is ready to 'go back to the ballot'.
"I really hope that someone goes to the Supreme Court asking for dissolution of Parliament. This way we will have an interpretation telling us the difference between an aspiration and a provision," he said.
Kuria further noted that not even women MPs would have voted for the gender bill on Wednesday if it was put up for voting saying that they were also 'listening to their constituents at the grassroots'.