Loss to taxpayers as NA spends Ksh.90M defending legality of Bills passed

Loss to taxpayers as NA spends Ksh.90M defending legality of Bills passed

The National Assembly has so far spent Ksh. 90million defending the legality of the Bills passed without the inclusion of the Senate.

It is the latest in a long list of losses to taxpayers in the continued sibling rivalry between the two Houses.

Speaking during the resumption of Senate sittings, Minority Leader James Orengo expressed dismay that taxpayers are losing huge amount of money over the cases.

Orengo however claimed that the Senate has so far not spent any money on the cases as they have been represented by Senator Okongo Omugeni and Mutula Kilonzo Junior pro bono.

The High Court has already declared 24 laws as illegal after it found that the Senate was not involved in its passage, laws that are expected to be republished afresh.

The Senate had protested in the high court over the consideration of 40 bills that had been considered in the National Assembly without their involvement.

“The loss in terms of public resources should also be borne by the National Assembly, not as an institution but individually, because they have to republish all those Bills and they have to go through the National Sssembly and the Senate at great expense, this shouldn’t have happened,” Orengo said.

Orengo asked both Houses to obey the law despite their political persuasions to avoid such kind of scenarios.

“It pays to obey the law, I know we are going to have very heated political times ahead, but I want to insist that it pays to obey the law” said the Minority Leader.

Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula said the Senate needs to be fully involved when the 24 bills are republished so that not to rubber stamp what the National Assembly.

The two Houses have been in perpetual fighting since the two houses came into existence after the promulgation of the 2010 constitution.

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