governors may soon lose their newly acquired titles and goodies they had started to enjoy if an amendment Bill in the Senate goes through. 0 inShare The National Flag, Emblems and Names Amendment Bill by Kakamega Senator Bonny Khalwale seeks to clearly define the titles of the new positions created by the new Constitution. If it goes through, the county bosses title will officially be Mr Governor while the Senators also termed as Mr Senator, the President and National Assembly members will retain His Excellency and honourable MP salutations. “We are saying that Mr Senator serves us right and in the Governors we will do away with the His Excellency bit, this is likely to create a lot of unnecessary confusion given that the same title is also used by the Head of State,” said Dr Khalwale. Among a raft of changes expected if the amendment goes through is that the County Executive Officers will only be allowed to fly the National flag while driving within their counties and remove them when they are crossing to another county. “For the sake of the national cohesion they should be allowed to use the national flag within their governments, and going with it out of the County will become an offence with a possible jail term of six months or a fine,” the vice Chairman of senate committee on Finance. offence “A person who unlawfully uses a title commits an offence and is liable, on conviction to a fine not exceeding sh100,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or both,” reads part of the Amendment Bill. Governors who will fly the national flag outside of their Counties will also risk the same penalty. On Thursday Members of the National Assembly threatened to amend the Constitution to trim the powers of the Governors who they accused of becoming ‘small gods’ back in their counties. “Juzi nikiwa kwa constituency nilisikia watu wakisema karibu rais, karibu na nikashindwa kawani Uhuru amekuja kwangu bila kuniambia? (Recently while in the constituency I heard people chanting welcome President welcome and I wondered had President Uhuru Keyatta decided to visit without letting me know), little did I know it was my Governor,” said Tigania East MP Mpuri Apuri. In April the Governors confronted the former President Kibaki with a memorandum during an induction workshop in Naivasha. In the demands that angered the former Head of State, the County bosses asked for three vehicles each with special number plates marked County Governor and flying the National Flag, eight bodyguards and diplomatic passports.In the memo, the Governors also asked Kibaki to declare that the best available offices and residences be given to them in their respective counties as they await the building of Governors offices and mansions. In the petition to Kibaki, in addition, they propose that for far-flung counties, a liaison office in Nairobi should be established to coordinate the Governors and their foreign travels. Among what sounded outrageous was the request to be saluted as ‘His Excellency the Governor’” 0 inShare For Governors the world over, the salutation is ‘His Excellency the Governor’, for us its ambiguous and each one of us is left to their own devices to decide how they want to be addressed,” they said in the petition. “It’s our humble request that the spirit and the letter of devolution is respected and fully implemented and the proper mechanism for the same followed in order to give the Governors their due mandate,” they argued. President Kenyatta directed that governors should be given diplomatic passports and special number plates for their official vehicles as some of the measures already taken to facilitate them in discharging their responsibilities last month while chairing the first National and County Government co-ordinating Summit Wednesday at State House, Nairobi,
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 15:32:16 +0000
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