Constituency offices will now be used as venues for public participation exercises, National Assembly Clerk Mr. Samuel Njoroge has said.

Mr. Njoroge made the remarks during the retreat in Naivasha, noting that mechanisms are being put in place to facilitate the plan.

“In an effort to ensure that the public participation was effective and meets the laid down regulations, the National Assembly will use constituency offices for public participation exercises,” he explained.

The Clerk indicated that the Public Participation exercise is conducted in a democratic nation to offer mechanisms and forums through which the public can be heard through submission of views on a particular piece of legislation.

The retreat in Naivasha is being chaired by National Assembly Speaker Rt. Hon. (Dr.) Moses Wetang’ula and is attended by among others, Majority Leader Hon Kimani Ichung’wah and his Minority counterpart Hon. Junet Mohammed.

Hon. Wetang’ula noted that the public participation exercise would be streamlined ones the proposed Public Participation Bill is enacted.

“The proposed Bill that is before the Attorney General will seal all the loopholes in the public participation that have been causing confusion in our courts whenever matters challenging the exercise are before the Judiciary,” said Speaker Wetang’ula.

Dr. Wetang’ula called on the MPs to fast-track the process of enacting the legislation.

Members welcomed the decision to use constituency offices as venues for public participation exercise, noting that the move will come with a ray of benefits.

Led by Emuhaya MP, Hon. Omboko Milemba, they pointed out that the decision would also serve to create employment as personnel will be sought to facilitate the service.

“We support this decision because it will create job opportunities for our voters. The only thing we need to do is to streamline the process through legislation,” said Hon. Milemba, who is also a Member of the Speaker’s Panel.

The Clerk Njoroge also instructed MPs to ensure that all office equipment in the constituency offices were insured to unlock compensation incase the equipment were destroyed through violence or fire.

“Members are aware that the Parliamentary Service Commission has not spent any single cent for repairs of damages worth millions of shillings caused by protesting youths who invaded Parliament. The exercise was accomplished by the insurance. The same should happen to equipment at constituency offices,” he added.

Earlier in his opening remarks during the morning session, Mr. Njoroge highlighted statistics on House performance.

He indicated that 17 Bills had been passed, eight of them assented to, three awaiting assent, six forwarded to the Senate and eight are at the mediation stage.

 “Hon. Members, although we have made progress on certain areas, 49 Bills were set to lapse while 67 Motions were awaiting debate,” said Mr. Njoroge.

The National Assembly Clerk called on legislators to speed up processing of the pending legislations in the House.