Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula becomes the latest politician to fault President Uhuru Kenyatta's decision to prolong the tenure of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) taskforce.
Uhuru and ODM leader Raila Odinga, his co-founder of the BBI initiative, on Wednesday handed the 14-member team a new tenure and a role of spearheading the BBI report's public participation set to kick off early next year.
But Wetangula argues that this was the wrong way to go, saying that given that the team is the same one behind the initial report, there was a need for fresh brains.
Otherwise, says the Ford Kenya Party Leader, the final product, will not be different from the current report.
He told the Standard on Friday that there was a need for inclusion of some technocrats, judging by the technicality of the exercise lying ahead.
"I’m surprised that the president has retained this team. I expected that this process was for sieving and synthesising of views collected from the public by the Haji team. This stage is more technical. With the retention of the team without the technocrats, it will be no different from what we had in Bomas,” said the lawmaker.
According to him, the fact that the task force is also being seen as trying to manipulate the 2022 polls, a new team which can be considered neutral should handle the remaining part.
He said that the BBI report has been clouded by issues of 2022 succession politics and Uhuru's decision is therefore surprising, to him.
Wetangula is, however, among notable national figures who have since declared their full support for the BBI initiative and its inclusivity and national healing goals.