Minority senators allege sidelining, bias in parliament

Members of the minority in the Senate have protested what they describe as hypocrisy, disregard of the rules of the House, and contempt directed at the minority's leadership in the House.

Addressing the media on Monday after their reflection retreat to assess their performance of the last two sessions, the leader of the Minority, Stewart Madzyo, together with Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna, accused the office of the speaker of bias, especially when it comes to debate on bills that concern devolved units.

“In our considered opinion, the speaker's office is one of the biggest impediments to the proper working of the house,” Madzayo said.

He argued that the legislative process in the Senate has completely been captured.

“In the first two sessions, we have seen a barrage of unconstitutional bills all sponsored by the Kenya Kwanza regime. The constitution under Article 96(2), requires that the house considers and debates all legislation relating to devolution", the senator said.

According to the minority, they have seen neither considered nor debate on key bills in the first two sessions, which they term as a claw-back on devolution.

“These include the bill on SHIF and the health promoters bill. We have seen the emergence of phenomenon where shortcuts are taken to fast-track government bills, limit debates on the floor, and elected leaders asking the speaker to put the question without any debate,” added Senator Edwin Sifuna.

They said that despite having written a complaint letter to the speaker Amson Kingi, nothing has happened.

Now they demand Kingi to respond to all the complaint letters as soon as possible to address the alleged bias on the floor of the house.

“In the same breath, private member bills sponsored by members of the minority have faced a myriad of frustrations including undue delays at the pre-publication stage, publication and processing at the committee stage not to mention scheduling for debate,” lamented Senator Sifuna.

“We are not asking for the speaker to give us favours, all we are asking for is equal opportunities when it comes to debating bills on the floor of the house.”