Vihiga senator Godfrey Osotsi has urged President William Ruto to move with speed and implement Gen-Z demands to avert demonstrations.
Osotsi said the first demand Ruto should act on is signing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries (amendment) Bill before him.
The Bill seeks to unlock the operations of the electoral body.
“The continued delay to assent to the IEBC Bill is a clear plan for President Ruto to protect Members of the National Assembly who voted for the Finance Bill, 2024 against the wishes of majority Kenyans,” Osotsi said.
“Signing the Bill will help people start the recall of MPs.”
He said referral of the Bill to the National Assembly is unconstitutional as its time had lapsed.
The Senator criticised Ruto’s proposal to reduce revenue to counties by reintroducing the Division of Revenue Act and County Allocation Revenue Act to the Senate as Supplementary Bill.
“The law is very clear that the allocation to counties cannot change if the national government revenue target is not met. It will be unprecedented to send back the law in form of a Supplementary Bill,” Osotsi said.
He asked the government to come out clearly on the exact budget deficit occasioned by the withdrawal of the BIll.
“We have been told the withdrawal of the Finance Bill, 2024 has caused a Sh1 trillion gap in the budget. In another instance, we have been told the withdrawal of the Bill will cause a budget dip of Sh346 billion. Which is which?” the lawmaker asked.
“We are being treated to another drama of borrowing and budgetary cuts to address the gap in the financing plan. We will not buy this gimmick.”
Osotsi criticised the president’s formation of a taskforce to audit the public debt.
“While the move to audit the public debt is welcome, purporting to gazette a taskforce to audit our debt is out of place in line with our constitutional provision. The responsibility and mandate of such an important exercise lies with the office of the Auditor General,” he said.
The Senator asked Ruto to empower the Auditor General to conduct the audit duties effectively.
“We have heard instances where the Auditor General has lamented about inability to carry out audits on the public debt due to failure by the National Treasury to provide required documents to facilitate such an exercise,” Osotsi said.
He said dissolution of 47 state corporations needs the input of Parliament because the bodies were created through an Act of Parliament.
“To dissolve the State Corporations, the President needs to involve Parliament that will have to repeal the Acts that caused the establishment of the said bodies,” Osotsi said.
He added that the removal of can only be done through a gazette notice and not a press conference.
Osotsi said failure to remove offices of spouses and state officers through a gazette notice means that the said offices will continue to get funding from the National Treasury.
