Performance of 12th Parliament 3rd Session ranked lowest

The Annual Parliamentary Scorecard for the 3^rd Session of the 12^th Parliament, indicates that the aggregate performance of the 12th Parliament’s 3^rd Session, was the lowest. 

The report released Wednesday by Mzalendo Trust, a Parliamentary Monitoring Organization, shows that of the 116 Bills passed in the National Assembly only 24 were assented to, translating to about 21 per cent, the lowest in five years.

The Senate passed a total of 34 Bills out of which only 4 were assented to.  

Mzalendo Trust Executive Director, Caroline Gaita, said  the diminished role of the opposition as a result of the handshake and party co-operation across the political divide, further compounds the performance noting  the need to safeguard the independence and performance of Parliament.  

An analysis by counties shows the top five  performing counties aggregated by  contributions of MPs from each County are Homa Bay, Trans Nzoia, Kericho, West Pokot and Bungoma respectively.

Conversely, the bottom five counties are Garissa, Tana River, Turkana, Kwale and Narok.

In terms of committee work, the National Assembly had a total of 1,211 committee sittings in 2019, while the Senate had approximately 505 sittings.

Given the challenge by COVID-19, Mzalendo Trust, has called  on Parliament to enhance technological uptake in order to ensure public participation noting in 2019, a whopping 55.2 per cent of the sittings were not open to the public, in contrast to the Senate where approximately 72 per cent of the sittings were open to the public.