Members of Parliament have threatened to down tools if National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) monies are not released or disbursed to their constituencies by next week.
Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi asked parliamentarians not to engage in any commercial enterprise of parliament if the money is not disbursed.
Wandayi asked the speaker to direct the Majority Leader to have discussion with the National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u to state when the cash will be released.
“And may additionally I also say, and this is now not an empty threat, that failure to do that I will be shifting participants of the House to refrain from any speak of recess and secondly to chorus from any engagements on any business, till and until NG-CDF funds are disbursed,” Opiyo Wandayi said.
His counterpart Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wa agreed with his sentiments, promising to meethe Executive in an effort to free up the impasse.
Ichung’wa said matters of NG-CDF and the National Gender Affirmative Action Fund are very sensitive, not to the MPs but the populace they represent.
“There is no person in the Executive who ought to think that they are doing any MP a favour by disbursing the NG-CDF fund. The funds are redicted immediately to the people, our voters whom we represent. We cannot wait any longer, they choose us to get resources for them and this includes the bursaries for college fees,” Ichungwa said.
He said there is no valid motive for the government not to disburse the funds.
Speaker Moses Wetangula directed Ichung’wa to meet the Treasury and provide a formal assertion on the way forward through Tuesday next week.
The fund has been in limbo since the Supreme Court declared the 2013 CDF Act illegal, with former Treasury CS Ukur Yattani declining to disburse funds to the constituencies.
Matungulu MP Stephen Mule and his counterpart Gichugu MP Robert Gichumu have already began a technique to regularize the CDF Act by means of amending the constitution and anchoring CDF in the law.
