4 July 2008
Nairobi — MPs want the proposed National Ethnic and Race Relations Commission to be given adequate powers to check unfairness in the allocation of resources.
According to the lawmakers, the commission will be expected to facilitate and promote equality of opportunity, good relations, harmony and peaceful co-existence.
The relevant Bill is now set to be scrutinised by the Legal Affairs and Administration of Justice committee, which will suggest amendments.
The whole House will thereafter debate the amendments and vote on them before deciding the fate of the Bill.
Blamed leaders
Some MPs blamed past and current leaders of dangling the ethnic stick for political survival. The anomaly, they argued, was seen in discriminative employment patterns in public offices.
They recalled the post-election violence that rocked the country in the wake of disputed presidential poll results.
They said the orgy of lawlessness took an ethnic dimension because of inequalities among different communities in the country.
The National Ethnic and Race Relations Commission will have 11 commissioners.
Eight commissioners, from which the chairperson will be drawn, will be appointed by the President from persons nominated by Parliament.
The other three commissioners will be ex-officio members from the Public Standing Complaints Committee, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Kenya National Commission on Gender and Development.
The proposed commission will receive complaints on discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race or religion.
The Bill emanates from deliberations by the National Dialogue and Reconciliation Committee, which was formed after a political crisis ensued following a dispute over results of the presidential elections.
Deep-seated and long-standing divisions within the Kenyan society came to the fore.
To end those divisions, a number of constitutional, legal and political measures were proposed. They included the formation of a commission to deal with ethnic relations in Kenya.
Debate on the Bill was Thursday marked by members' admission that ethnic discrimination was a bad reality that everybody must shun.
Medical Services assistant minister Danson Mungatana asked the House committee on Legal Affairs to refer to the British Race Relations Act (1976), which he celebrated as a more comprehensive and effective law, replete with sanctions.
Discrimination
He said powers given to the proposed commission under the Bill were limited.
Mr Mungatana proposed that the commission be allowed to scrutinise State corporations and offices to see whether they comply with a given code to discourage discrimination.
He said it should also have powers to issue non-discriminatory notices to employers deemed to have complied with the code.
Githunguri MP Njoroge Baiya (Safina) accused MPs opposed to the Bill as beneficiaries of ethnic favouritism.
Nominated MP Millie Odhiambo (ODM) said the country needed a task force with specific time lines, not a commission, to address ethnic discrimination.
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