Chaos as House passes State Enterprises Bill

The National Assembly was yesterday rocked by chaos in developments that saw leaders from the united opposition front suspended from the House for five days.

Deputy Minority leader Robert Mbui and Embakasi South MP Julius Mawathe were each suspended from the House by Deputy Speaker Glady’s Shollei over what they termed as the illegal and skewed passage of the Government Enterprises Bill, 2025.

Notably, the Bill seeks to turn State firms into private enterprises. It seeks to provide for the establishment, control, governance, performance and ownership of Government Owned Enterprises; public service obligations in respect of Government Owned Enterprises; facilitate the reconstitution of existing Government Owned Enterprises into public limited liability companies for the transfer of the assets, liabilities and the business of the Government Owned Enterprises to companies and for connected purposes.

Trouble began after Mbui, Mawathe, Kipipiri MP Wanjiku Muhia and others stood on points of order during the consideration of the Bill at the third reading stage seeking to raise the fact that the House had no quorum to vote on the Bill.

The Speaker would however proceed to ignore the plea’s by the members and all the while Ichung’wah who was the mover of the motion read the Bill for a third time. Frustrated, Mbui tried to grab the Mase of the House in a bid to halt what he would term as an unprocedural sitting but his efforts were thwarted by the Seargents-at-arm. His actions were seemingly premised on an earlier request to the Speaker to suspend debate of the Bill to next week but which was unceremoniously shot down.

MP Mawathe on his part could be heard persistently shouting that there was no quorum in the House and therefore the consideration of the Bill should be pushed to Tuesday next week when the requisite number of members had been achieved.

Shollei however remained unmoved.

“The reason why I am ignoring you members is because you are grossly out of order…in fact one of you has attempted to remove the Mase and I am therefore asking the Seargents-at-arm to remove you from the precincts of Parliament for a period of five days,” stated Shollei, before the motion was seconded by Marakwet East MP Kangogo Bowen.  

And acting on orders, the Seargents hastily escorted the MPs outside the chambers. But in unison number of MPs also walked with them in solidarity.

Leader of the Majority party Ichung’wa would continue to accuse the opposition MPs of trying to disrupt House proceedings “while intoxicated.”

“The member of Embakasi South cannot come to spew epithets in the House when clearly intoxicated. I shall be moving to name the Member for Embakasi South for appearing in the House intoxicated and seemingly looking very drunk to try and disrupt the House,” he stated.

But in a rejoinder, the opposition MPs threatened legal action against the Bill that sailed through the third reading Stage and is now awaiting Presidential assent.

During a press briefing held within the precincts of Parliament, the lawmakers accused the leadership of the House of hurriedly passing the Bill and being in cahoots with the executive to ensure that it was passed with the least resistance.

“There was no reason for the Deputy Speaker to deny us an opportunity to speak. Kenyans must now know that we have a rogue Parliament being run like a Market place. But I want to tell them that the fight is not over and will continue after the lapse of my five-day suspension,” said Mbui.

Adding, “There is a plan to privatize the State corporations and I suspect there is a plan to get rid of them by giving them out to individuals. Why couldn’t they wait for debate on Tuesday / What was so urgent?”

Mwathe on his part reiterated that there were less than 20 MPs present during the sitting considering the Bill. He also hit out at Ichung’wah urging him to keep his “inflated ego” in check.

“Any law passed today as of 4pm is illegal because there was no quorum in the House. Anybody can now go to the House and challenge them because the Deputy Speaker and majority leader flouted the law in their approval’ added the MP.