Constitutional Implementation and Oversight Committee (CIOC) has responded to National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi over his recent ruling on the planned Mombasa retreat.
The Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni-led team had planned to use the retreat to discuss the recently-launched Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report.
However, Muturi ruled out the plans on grounds that the report is still unrecognized by the house, with Kioni now saying that the move might be an attempt to gag MPs.
Speaking on Wednesday, Kioni said that since the view collection for the initiative was funded by public money before it was launched at the Bomas of Kenya, MPs in the committee should be at liberty to probe the document.
“This BBI report was launched officially at Bomas and posted online hence access via the internet. Once you have it from the internet, nobody should question the authenticity,” he said, according to The Star.
He added that the Speaker should no longer pretend not knowing the existence of the report, suggesting that the move might gag MPs from probing documents in the future.
"That is a ruling that can be comfortable with the Executive and even the Judiciary. They can easily say a committee has not been allowed by Parliament to oversight,” he added.
In his ruling last week, Muturi said that its only after the report has found its way in the house that public monies can be released for its probe.
He said that for now, the committee will be unconstitutionally spending the taxpayer's money if allowed to proceed on the retreat.
“The BBI report has not found legs to reach Parliament. Any committee of the House that may be desirous of discussing it will be doing it outside the functions of Parliament,” he said.