National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula wants Members of the National Assembly to undertake the process of developing legal instruments to entrench the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) into the constitution.

According to Wetangula doing so will ring fence the fund against the sustained attack from the never ending litigations in courts.

Speaker Wetang’ula was speaking during the Post-Election Seminar 2023 held in conjunction with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

Wetangula said that the legislature is vested with a critical role to ensure that public resources are put to good use including NG-CDF, NGAAF and now the Hustler Fund to ensure that the electorate get service for the resources as allocated.

“I urge Members to engage in meaningful deliberations leading to embedding the Funds in the Constitution to regularize their availability for socio-economic development”, said the Speaker.

This was following a last week’s stalemate that erupted during the induction of the Members of the national assembly due to delay of disbursement of Funds for constituency development.

Also Read: MPs Walk Out of an Induction Workshop in Mombasa

Further, he urged leaders to keep their eyes on the ground to ensure that these and indeed any other public resources are properly utilized to the last cent in order to achieve the objectives for serving and improving the lives of the people of Kenya.

NG-CDF Declared Unconstitutional

Speaker Wetang’ula confirmed the restoration of the NG-CDF during his communication to the House in the first session of his term as Speaker of the National Assembly.

He further noted that he had devised an amicable way of averting constant and future court battles against Parliament by initiating a process through a team of senior lawyers who are Members of Parliament and are willing to give free counsel with a view to arresting the constant misguided legal battles between the two Houses of Parliament.

In August 2022, the Supreme Court declared the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NGCDF) Act which was enacted in 2013 and changed in 2015 as  unconstitutional.

A five bench judge of the top court  led by Chief Justice Martha Koome ruled that the CDF Act violates the principle of separation of powers, hence is unconstitutional.

Each constituency receives at least Sh100 million every year.

The Supreme Court Judges ruled that CDF ought to be integrated and subsumed within the structures of either the county executive or the national executive.

In 2015, the High Court had declared the NG-CDF Act unconstitutional before Parliament moved to the Court of Appeal and successfully reversed the decision.

The Institute for Social Accountability (TISA) and the Centre for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance (CEDGG) then moved to the Supreme Court arguing that CDF is unconstitutional,

The two organizations argued that the fund allows MPs to get involved in implementing tax-payer funded projects, which is a preserve of the executive arm of government.