National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi. He has said Parliamentary
committees will be required to give the House leadership three months’
notice whenever they intend to travel abroad. This follows concerns that
MPS are spending too much on foreign travel. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA
GROUP
Parliamentary committees will be required to give the House
leadership three months’ notice whenever they intend to travel abroad,
National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has said.
Mr
Muturi also criticised MPs for taking too long to prepare reports on
matters long after getting reports from the Auditor-General and meeting
the Cabinet secretaries and other government officials.
Mr
Muturi said the House had introduced the measures to reduce the number
of foreign trips by MPs amid concerns that they are spending too much on
travel.
He said the government had also received
complaints by some countries about the large number of Kenyan
delegations visiting, which also strain them because they require
special handling.
“When a committee travels outside at
public expense, logically there should be a report. If you saw nothing,
say ‘There’s no need to go there.’ So many countries are saying, ‘No
more Kenyan delegations’. Countries are tired of us.
“We’ve
asked them to be giving us three months’ notice because we want to know
what informs the travel,” said Mr Muturi as he opened a training
workshop for parliamentary reporters in Mombasa.
He
singled out the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which has travelled to
Canada, France, South Africa and India to investigate the procurement of
election materials by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission.
Mr
Muturi said the Auditor-General had already conducted a special audit
of the procurement of Biometric Voter Registration, Electronic Voter
Identification Devices and the Results Transmission System.
USE AUDIT REPORT
The PAC, he said, ought to have used that audit rather than travel.
“We
hear the Auditor-General, Edward Ouko, has already investigated this
BVR issue yet this committee wants to go to Canada… Ouko’s report is
out. Use it,” he said.
The Speaker said if there are
gaps in the audit report that they want filled, the committee should
travel with the people who have the capacity to ask the right questions.
“If you travel to India, to Bangalore, you’re not likely to get much,” said Mr Muturi.
The
PAC has been under the spotlight in Parliament for delays in preparing
the report on the IEBC procurement more than a year after the
investigation started.
The Parliamentary Service
Commission, which Mr Muturi chairs, is reported to have spent Sh557.6
million on travel in the first three months of the financial year.
The
committee, chaired by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba, has been criticised
for delaying the tabling of reports on the government’s audited
accounts.
REPORTS NOT YET TABLED
Two
weeks ago, Mr Namwamba led his committee in declaring that the three
reports would be tabled in two days, but that is yet to happen with
three sitting days to the Christmas break, which starts on Friday.
Mr
Muturi said there were also concerns that more than a year after the
PAC ordered a special audit of the Judiciary, there is no report from
the team despite their lengthy investigations.
The
Speaker said other concerns are about the many cases where parliamentary
committees take up matters already under investigation by specialised
government agencies such as the police and the Ethics and
Anti-Corruption Commission ( EACC).
Among this is the
Karen land saga, which is under investigation by the EACC and the
police, with the Lands Committee also having taken it up and begun
holding hearings.
“Next thing, we’re going to hear that a committee is going to investigate murder,” Mr Muturi said.
National Assembly Clerk Justin Bundi said committees take long to issue reports unless they have deadlines
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