Alphonce SHIUNDU

The crucial talks to salvage the national budget for the next financial year had to be postponed for a fortnight following a bad-tempered disagreement between senators and members of the National Assembly in the team appointed by both Houses to reach a compromise on how much money counties should get. National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi threw the spanner in the works when he told MPs that it will be wrong for them to go ahead and look at the Sh2.1 trillion budget estimates without a law in place to determine the sharing of money between the national government and the 47 county governments. "The law is very clear that the counties and the national government should prepare budget estimates as per the Division of Revenue Act. That Act is not in place. Whatever they'll be doing will therefore be preparatory works," said Muturi just after Majority Leader Aden Duale tabled the budget estimates of the National Executive and those of the Judiciary. LEGAL SHORTCUTS Th...

Passionate night-long lobbying, the hands-off approach of opposition leader Raila Odinga not to have a favourite man, a last-minute entry of another opposition MP plus the rare independent voting among the MPs of the ruling Jubilee coalition propelled Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo to the helm of the National Assembly's most-crucial watchdog committee. In the Tuesday voting at the Main Parliament Buildings, Gumbo clinched the coveted influential seat in the Public Accounts Committee with 12 votes beating his party's national chairman John Mbadi (Suba) who got nine votes. Balambala MP Abdikadir Aden, who the MPs claimed was being fronted by the Jubilee coalition got four votes, while the last-minute entrant Andrew Mwadime (Mwatate) got one vote –his. The vote was through secret ballot. Eseli Simiyu (Tongaren) stepped down and said he was "standing by the party position, which was to elect Mbadi", but the Minority Leader Francis Nyenze, the Minority Whip Thomas...

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From the vantage Press Gallery, the on-goings during the reading of the first Budget under the new Constitution was a spectacle that will be forever etched in the history books of the country. And it's not because it was Sh1.2 trillion worth of projections. It's the 'colour'. Looking down at the MPs, it was evident that most of them were in the House to see how Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta will handle the reading of the annual financial statement –the Budget Speech. They were not there to listen attentively to what the minister would say, because, in any case, the committees of the House will have the final say on the national budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Though House Speaker Kenneth Marende had promised a ministerial statement, he too, had to strike a balance between what the Constitution says and what the Standing Orders stipulate with regard to the presentation of the financial statement. In the end, Mr Kenyatta had his chance to read the budget in the...