Full in-tray awaits new Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Mutura
A full in-tray of House business awaits the new Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Benson Mutura as he begins his reign as the third speaker of the city county assembly.
This follows his election on Friday to replace Beatrice Elachi who resigned from thespeaker position last week Tuesday.
Top on the list of agenda awaiting the former Makadara MP this week is the election of a new deputy speaker in the course of the week to replace the current holder of the position Ruai MCA John Kamangu.
Mr Kamangu is expected to step down as deputy speaker with the position going to the opposition as part of a deal between ODM and Jubilee Party.
Deputy Majority Whip Chege Waithera confirmed that the election of a deputy speaker will be the first business that Mr Mutura will handle as speaker of the House.
The South B MCA pointed out that the Jubilee Party MCAs will go for a consensus building meeting ahead of the exercise to have a united stand as part of a deal to have a unified House with all MCAs pulling towards a similar direction.
“The first business will be the election of a deputy speaker. We are giving the deputy speaker position to our counterparts. We shall carry out the process this week, likely on Wednesday or Thursday. But by this week I am pretty sure that we shall have done away with the issue,” said Ms Waithera.
The assembly has been on recess, expected to last until September 8 since being adjourned late last month but MCAs can convene for a special sitting when there is urgent business to be transacted like the election of a speaker last Friday.
The next business that will confront the new speaker is the composition of the speaker’s panel which has not been in place since when Ms Elachi disbanded the previous one more than four months ago.
“The Speaker’s panel will have to wait for the decision of the new speaker since he is the appointing authority but he has also to consult widely across the political divide,” she said.
But that is not all that is lying in wait for the 48-year-old as he will also be expected to decide whether the House will continue holding its sittings virtually or not. The assembly has been meeting virtually since last month.
Mr Mutura will also be expected to decide on the composition of the House Business Committee (HBC) as well as the committee on appointments and committee on selection.
“There is full business for next week so expect a lot of aggressiveness in the positive business that will be transacted this week,” said the Jubilee MCA.
The committee on appointments is also chaired by the speaker and is tasked with considering appointments of county executive committee members while the committee on selection, chaired by the majority leader, nominates members to serve in select committees.
HBC on the other hand, is one of the housekeeping committees of an assembly chaired by the speaker and is charged with ensuring that the business of the assembly is running smoothly.