Former AG Githu Muigai says Parliament has 'too many people,' wants Woman Rep seat scrapped

Former Attorney General Githu Muigai now says Parliament has too many leaders, and that there should be a plan to reduce the number of constituencies as well as scrap a few political positions.

He said this while making his submissions before the National Dialogue Committee at the Bomas of Kenya on Thursday.

According to Muigai, political positions should be reduced by scaling down the number of counties that have forced the government to make excessive expenditures.

"We have too many people in Parliament, we have too many constituencies and counties. They are costing us a lot of money. Reduce the constituencies to about 100 and have one man and one woman in each," he said.

Muigai explained that when he participated in the drafting of the Constitution in 2004 at the Bomas of Kenya, in what became famously known as the Bomas draft, the suggestion was to have only 14 counties.

However, the former AG noted that politicians changed their tune later on and increased the number.

"They came up with a compromise of let's go to 41 counties," he explained.

Muigai said that were their Constitution draft to be reopened, one issue that could be useful would be the reduction of counties.

"Bring more counties together and let them work together and mobilize resources together and share together," he continued.

The prominent lawyer further stated that the two-thirds gender rule should be scrapped and, instead, a 50/50 representation be introduced in government.

Terming it as just a “women empowerment rule," the prominent lawyer said there should be robust sensitization around the matter and even scrap off a few political positions preserved for women.

"There is a feeling amongst Kenyans that we have not done enough to justify this. We need more civic education on empowering women...empowering a community.

"We need to abolish the Woman Rep seat, we create two positions in the constituency. We will achieve 50 percent, and it will be cheaper," he said.

The conversation on boundaries comes at a time when Kuria East Member of Parliament Marwa Kitayama tabled a Bill seeking to amend the Constitution.

The Bill proposes to increase the number of counties to 52 from the current 47 capped by the Constitution.

The 10-member dialogue committee is deliberating issues the opposition Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition party has with President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza administration to solve the longstanding political tiff.

The committee signed its framework agreement on August 30, giving it 60 days to hold talks and submit a report to Parliament.