Makueni Senator Mutua Kilonzo Junior has dismissed a threat by Members of the National Assembly to overturn a memorandum from President Uhuru Kenyatta on commercial lending rate caps.
The Head of State has refused to assent to the Finance Bill, 2019 and, in a memorandum tabled in Parliament on Thursday, instructed the MPs to remove a section that sought to retain the capping of interest rates.
However, the MPs led by Minority Leader John Mbadi have vowed to defy Uhuru saying his reasons for removing capping of the interest rate were not convincing.
Mutula, however, said the legislators will not be able to marshal the numbers needed to override the President and stop the repealing of the law.
Revisiting the recent decision by MPs to raise the debt ceiling, the Senator said it will be a tall order for them to get a two-thirds majority—or 233 lawmakers—to overturn Uhuru’s memorandum on the amendments.
"The National Assembly unanimously approved the request by Treasury Increase the debt ceiling from 5.7 trillion to 9 trillion shillings. You can bet that they will not marshal numbers to alter the Presidential memorandum proposing to lift the interest caps," he tweeted on Friday.
Mbadi, the Suba South legislator said the President's argument that the rate cap was making credit to common citizens unaffordable and unavailable holds no water and vowed to mobilise his colleagues to shoot down the memorandum.
“I don’t agree with the reasons the President has advanced in his rejection of the bill. It is upon us to ensure that we get the numbers to overturn his reservations,” the MP said as quoted by the Nation.