A new Bill that proposes that the president should be given mandate to fire his deputy has been presented to the National Assembly.
The Bill was presented by the National Assembly’s Committee on Implementation and oversight.
The Committee is pushing for the president to be granted powers to sack his/her deputy at his/her own will. The proposal was introduced under the constitutional amendment Bill 2021.
According to the proposal, the president will only send home the deputy if a third of the National Assembly’s members and those of the senate support the motion.
“Article 150(1) is amended by inserting a new paragraph that gives the president powers to sack with at least one-third of all the members of the National Assembly and at least one-third of all members of the senate,” part of the proposal reads.
Currently, the constitution states that two third of the members are required to support the motion for such a decision.
Before, the constitution allowed the president to send his deputy packing but the powers were scrapped off in the promulgation of the 2010 constitution.
The new bill further proposes that the president should have two deputies, a prime minister and two deputies prime ministers.
Aside from that it , it recommends that each candidate in a presidential election shall  nominate two persons who are qualified for nomination for election as president, as a candidate for the first deputy president and the other as a candidate for second deputy president.
This comes amid divisions between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy President William Ruto.
President Kenyatta and his deputy Ruto fell out after the president buried the hatchet with his political opponent Raila Odinga in the famous handshake which gave birth to the Building Bridges Initiative.
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