The Bicameral Parliament of Kenya considered at least 38 bills on the floor of both houses in the year 2021.
Some of the bills include the Political Parties’ Amendment bill 2021, the Election Campaign Financing Amendment bill 2021, the Finance bill 2021, and the Division of Revenue bill among others.
The Political Parties’ Amendment bill proposes that parties make public their source of funds; it also proposes that special interest groups allocated 15% of the political parties fund.
The Parliament of Kenya also in the year 2021 hosted Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan in a joint parliament session during her maiden visit to the country.
Here are some of the highlights in the Parliament’s 5th session in the year that was.
While closing the annual long recess on the 2nd of December 2021, majority leaders of both Houses, Amos Kimunya and Samuel Poghisio acknowledged that members still had a lot of house business to dispense.
From bills, motions, petitions, reports among other businesses, the leaders convened to discuss matters of national concern by the close of business of the 5th session.
The Political Parties amendment bill 2021 which seeks to amend the political parties Act 2011, was read for the first time before the floor of the National Assembly on the 2nd of December.
The contentious bill is one of the pending bills of national concern that saw parliamentarians reconvene for special sittings on the 21st and 22nd December amid concerns the bill ought to be concluded within a period of 6 months to elections.
Some of the proposals in the bill include, that a coalition political party must be registered by the registrar as a political party and shall submit the political agreement at least six months before a general election.
The bill also proposes tough measures to party members who promote the ideologies of another political party.
It further stipulates that political party funds shall be distributed among political parties on a 70% proportion, 15% special interest groups, 10% representative.
But the amendments proposed has elicited varied reactions with some political leaders questioning its agenda.
During the special sitting, the bill was read for the second time, giving members a chance to ventilate on it.
The House was however divided as political factions differed on the provisions of the bill which is expected to pass before February 2022.
The bill on division of revenue 2021, signed into law in April 2021 saw parliament remove grants from the Bill thereby reducing the revenue share for the devolved units to Ksh370billion.
The two houses had concurred that the grants cannot be included in the bill setting revenue share between the two levels of government.
The signing into law of the bill also paved way for an increment of at least Ksh50billion by county governments in improved shareable allocation, the controversial third basis county sharing formula was finally adopted after 10 sittings.
The election campaign financing regulation saw parliamentarians reject a move by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to impose spending caps on campaigns for various elective seats, the house rejected IEBC regulations that sought to restrict the amount of cash candidates could use in the 2022 polls.
The year 2021 also saw parliament host Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan in a joint sitting during her maiden visit to the country.
Her address at the parliament made her the second president to give a speech before the parliament of Kenya in the history of Kenya’s Parliament, the first was retired president Jakaya Kikwete who gave a speech in 2015 in the 11th parliament.
On 30th November during his State of the Nation address in Parliament President Uhuru Kenyatta directed parliament to adjust its calendar to conclude on critical legislative proposals emanating from the executive which are still pending in parliament, some of the proposals are the Huduma Bill which has so far gone through first reading at the National Assembly.
