MPs Building Castles in the Air

Kenyan Parliamentarians’ propensity to build castles in the air is universally unconquerable. It is simply next to none in the whole world. They never seem to run short of ideas that shock. First they pass the absurd motion against the parties that sponsored them to Parliament by rebelliously trying to form a fictitious Grand Opposition. It is fictitious because it is threatening the very existence of the Coalition Government which has brought back peace to this country.

Then now they think they should have the powers to create ministries for the Government. As lawmakers they should know what the Constitution says about the issue. Section 16(2) of the Constitution says the President shall appoint the Ministers from among the members of the National Assembly. It does not say ministers shall be appointed by Parliament.

But Section 16(1) of the Constitution, however, says there shall be such offices of Minister of the Government of Kenya as may be established by Parliament or, subject to any provision made by Parliament, by the President. Does this mean ministries shall be created by Parliament? If so, why has it not happened before? Were ministries created unilaterally by the President against the Constitution? Why bring up the matter at this moment in time?

That notwithstanding Section 24 of the Constitution says the powers of constituting and abolishing offices for the Republic of Kenya, of making appointments to any such office and terminating any such appointment, shall vest in the President.

The powers to appoint Ministers and create ministries do not rest on the President alone. According to the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, 2008, the Prime Minister has similar powers in the formation of the coalition Government. These powers are to be found in Section 4 (1,2and3) of the Act.

What must have happened when the current Government was formed and various ministries created by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, is that a lot of MPs expected to be in the new Cabinet. When many of them missed the boat they decided to show their powers as elected representatives of the people. Hence the call for a Grand Opposition and the suggestion that from now on they should be involved in the creation of ministries. Is there something that the MPs know that the rest of us don’t? Is there an internal split within ODM and PNU? Why this belated animosity against people who were hero-worshipped only three months ago?

Sure enough, looking at the ministries created by Kibaki and Raila is not a particularly pleasant exercise. Apart from its extraordinary monstrous size, and extremely expensive budget, some ministries look like mere departments of any serious Government. Jobs were definitely created for the boys. But that was to bring back peace after a lot of blood of innocent Kenyans was poured and thousands of our people – men, women, children and the aged – were made both homeless and dispossessed.

No price was too high to pay to re-establish peace after the whole country was almost torn to pieces by what resembled xenophobic nationalism. As a matter of fact, the problem has not completely been solved because there are still thousands of IDP yet to accept to return to their former homes, where the reception by the so called indigenous people still threatens to be hostile. I do not like calling those who are refusing to live with other Kenyans “indigenous” because every Kenyan, is, by birth, indigenous. There is no one who can claim to be more Kenyan than another Kenyan.

Instead of pocketing a lot of taxpayers’ money for debating hogwash subjects such as the formation of a Grand Opposition or who should be creating the Ministries, parliamentarians will appear to earn their salaries more legitimately by trying to solve the problem of IDP. The present trends in this Parliament exhibit the same calibre of greed as that of the one the voters have just fired. The fired group of MPs used the Legislature as a mint to make money. This one seems to be heading towards the same direction but in a rather circumlocutory manner, that shows some form of rebellion, for being left out of the Cabinet.

If the MPs want us to take them seriously they should immediately start sorting out the problem of some Kenyans thinking they are more important than other Kenyans. Traditionally we have always thought this was a characteristic of rich people who did not want to mix with the poor. But today things look different. The evil head of negative ethnicity is beginning to show its ugly face and may be some of the people responsible for the dirty work are sitting in Parliament today.

Suggestions have been made that real peace will come back to Kenya only when communities can communication between and among themselves. Dialogue between people who were fighting soon after last year’s elections must be started by all the people of goodwill. Among them should be members of Parliament who are too busy postponing peace talks instead of initiating them. Why? Because Raila and Kibaki forgot them when they were selecting Cabinet Ministers. So they must now disown both Raila and Kibaki. How shocking!

Some of them are suggesting that the hooligans who caused mayhem in December last year through murder and arson should be forgiven. That forgiveness will be the biggest mockery of justice. Martha Karua is right when she says everyone who was involved in the post election crimes must be brought to justice. That should be done as soon as possible because justice delayed is justice denied. She must also make sure that criminals from both sides are traced by the long arm of the law.

Justice must not only be done following the sad events of last year's elections, but it must manifestly be seen to be done. None of the criminals, for example, should be punished without revealing who paid them to commit the crimes. The paymasters of the criminals must also be made to face the music. Otherwise we can never be sure that these crimes will not be committed again and again.