National Super Alliance (Nasa) principals at Afraha Stadium, Nakuru, May 14, 2017. [Photo/Kalonzo Musyoka/Facebook]
The National Super Alliance (Nasa) has adopted a radical proposal that will see MPs appointed as Cabinet Secretaries.It plans to hold a national referendum within 100 days of assuming office to adopt a parliamentary system of government and have ministers appointed from Parliament.This will herald a major shift in government administration and governance that will bring an end to technocrats in Cabinet.Nasa opines that the present Cabinet is weak because the ministers are not politicians, so it wants to see ministers answer questions in Parliament.President Uhuru Kenyatta’s first Cabinet initially comprised mainly technocrats, but has since been beefed up by a number of politicians, in a push to appoint ministers from Parliament.Currently, a Cabinet Secretary is not a Member of Parliament and has to be vetted by a parliamentary committee and endorsed by the House before the appointment.The opposition Nasa, in its governance structure overhaul plan, will prioritise and campaign for a countrywide popular vote to effect the sweeping constitutional changes.Changing a system of government requires a national referendum as it touches on the structure of governance.Having Cabinet Secretaries appointed from Parliament would mean that the current system of government changes from purely presidential to the hybrid.A hybrid system is a mix of both presidential and parliamentary systems, in which the electorate directly elects a President as head of government and MPs as lawmakers from whom ministers are appointed.Nasa believes the current pure presidential system has been opaque, inefficient, ineffective and bureaucracy ridden, with less accountability to the electorate.“We are simply rekindling the demand for the parliamentary system that has always been there in the agenda of the Second Liberation. It had been achieved in the Bomas Draft Constitution, but was mutilated in Kilifi before the referendum of 2005. It was smuggled out of the 2010 draft through the Naivasha ‘deal’ and we had to accept that,” said Kisumu senator Prof Anyang' Nyong’o.Under the 2010 Constitution, Kenya adopted a presidential system of government over the hybrid government system in which the President and his ministers, all elected MPs, sat in the House.The presidential system gave chairpersons of parliamentary committees more mandate to respond to questions on the floor of the House on behalf of ministers.Cabinet Secretaries only appear before MPs when summoned by departmental committees, although their attendance has been erratic, often drawing the wrath of MPs.
[Source: the-star]