MPs threaten to go on strike if CDF is not disbursed

Some senators and representatives in the National Assembly are threatening to walk out over the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).

If the CDF is not distributed to the states and municipalities by the time lawmakers take their vacation, they have threatened to embark on a work slowdown.

If the money isn’t distributed, Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi has asked lawmakers to stop working.

Failure to distribute NG-CDF funding would prompt him to move, “members of the House to refrain from any talk of recess and secondly to refrain from any engagements on any business,” he stated.

In addition, he requested that the Speaker ask the Majority Leader to communicate with Treasury CS Njuguna Ndung’u about the issue.

Kimani Ichung’wa, the leader of the majority party, concurred with his colleague and said he, too, would talk to the Executive about it.

People are not waiting for us to leave on recess; they want us to go and process their bursaries for term one school fees. “There is nobody in the Executive who should feel that you are doing any MP a favor by disbursing CDF,” he remarked.

Kenya’s highest court ruled in August that CDF was unconstitutional.

The highest court found that the statute prohibiting legislators from handling public cash violates the principle of separation of powers.

The five-judge panel’s ruling stated, in part, “A declaration is hereby made that the Constituency Development Fund Act, 2013 is unconstitutional.”