SAM’S SENSE: Honorable surprises

Tonight, on my Sense, I sense an element of surprise in the country’s Members of Parliament. You see, surprise breeds anxiety, and anxiety can lead to rushed reactive decisions.

Lately, Members of Parliament have been displaying unusual…sorry, usual…No, let’s go with unusual for this to make sense: Unusual unawareness of facts.

Just recently, it occurred to the House leadership that a certain Member of Parliament who has been chairing a crucial House committee has been taking advantage of his position to benefit his constituents.

That the said member has been manipulating the numbers in a facility called, public participation kitty, which should have Ksh.2 billion to be shared among the constituencies for projects proposed by constituents at public participation engagements.

The two leaders of majority Kimani Ichung’wah and Junet Mohamed held the audience of their fellow members and the country, as they explained how grave the situation has been.

They agonized how the budget committee has abused the budget making process. So much so that now, the public participation kitty has been raised by Ksh.10 billion to Ksh.12 billion. To make it worse, the kitty has not been shared fairly among the counties and the constituencies. Who does that!

How could they go against the tradition set by previous Houses?

MP Junet Mohamed appeared so surprised that a Member of Parliament could afford to put cabro pavement at schools and even put out public messages, with fellow MPs travelling to that constituency for bench marking. Like how!

And for a whole two and a half years! Without the notice of anyone. How do people do that?

But they have fixed it now. They have reconstituted the committee, which is now all new and revamped. With firm instructions that none of those all-new members will be allowed to appropriate money to just their constituencies leaving out the rest of Kenya.

Only that of all the 27 members of the previous Budget and Appropriations Committee, only 22 have been retained. Yes, 22 remain in the same committee; including the supposed rogue member who was reportedly leading others in abusing privilege. Surprised?

Five members have been shown the door to fix that serious problem. Serious consequences, right?

Just a week ago the two leaders of majority caught the surprise of the nation. How could the Auditor General go leaking official audit reports before Members of Parliament even got to read it? How could media houses publish audit findings when Members of Parliament had yet to read or at least consider the report in Parliamentary committees?

But now, they know that a certain member of the budget committee has been using funds to the disadvantage of other constituencies. And they didn’t wait for an audit report to know that.

You may or may not know, that the same House passes budget estimates. If the committee members truly used funds to disadvantage others, the House passed it. And the two leaders of majority and minority enjoy priority-speaking rights in the House.

Back to surprises: Isn’t it the same Members of Parliament that acted surprised how the Social Health Authority had turned out so badly in the rollout? How surprised some of them were, that they passed laws whose content they hadn’t understood!

And do you remember how some MPs in 2023 and 2024 acted surprised that taxation was extending to some popular farm fruit? And how they said that the Finance Bill is such a huge document that you may not read through before taking a vote?

And oh! Have you heard how some members act surprised when they hear adverse audit reports on their NG-CDF expenditure? Some threaten to sue media outlets because, “an audit report has been cited out of context.”

To my surprise, I’m told that Parliament is the primary oversight body as per the Constitution. Now, that takes me by total surprise!