The two houses of parliament are headed to another feud following a move by the National Assembly to establish a Devolution Committee to rival that of the Senate.
A report by the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee tabled today, proposes the establishment of a Select Committee on Devolution in the National Assembly to oversight the function at the national level, to review policies and legislation on devolution with the aim of safeguarding the devolved systems.
The proposal is likely to raise a serious constitutional debate since the mandate to oversight devolution is solely mandated to the senate.
In the report tabled by the committee chairperson Njoroge Baiya, the proposed committee will be mandated to review gaps in policy and in the existing legislative framework on devolution and inter-government relations.
The committee will be mandated to provide oversight over the national government institutions implementing devolution and also take over the residual functions of the CIOC upon its winding up.
The Baiya led committee further recommends that the oversight functions on devolution vested in the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade be moved to the proposed committee on Devolution.
“It is the view of the CIOC that, by establishing such a committee on Devolution, the National Assembly will provide oversight and support to the national government institutions that implement devolution,” the report read.
Defending the move to establish the committee, the CIOC finds that there were serious weaknesses in the current institutional and legal framework that are hampering effective implementation of devolution.
