Nairobi County Speaker, Benson Mutura is under pressure to resume physical Assembly meetings, with the majority of the Members of County Assembly (MCA) saying the virtual debates are slowly but surely killing City Hall's vibrancy.
The MCAs say the virtual sittings are also lowering the quality of debate and consequently legislation, with some of their colleagues only logging in for the sake of it and not bothering about the proceedings at all.
The MCAs have been on a one-month recess and have resumed work today, September 6.
Speaker Mutura has, however, mentioned that even with the resumption, the Nairobi County Assembly will continue holding virtual meetings.
According to the Assembly's Minority leader, Michael Ogada, the virtual meetings are killing the vibrancy of the Assembly and soon there will be no Assembly at all.
Other leaders in the Assembly have noted that most of the MCAs attend the meetings just for the sake of it, and another group hardly attends the sessions perhaps due to their boring nature.
According to Ogada, the members are only now focusing on the 2022 General Election.
“It has become a routine. We are nowadays relaxed and there is nothing serious there. There is nothing important and we are going for the meetings just for the sake of it,” Ogada remarked, calling for the resumption of physical meetings.
Deputy Minority Whip, Waithera Chege added that the only way to revive the assembly and inject in some vibrancy is to get rid of the virtual engagements.
He, in fact, has been the top campaigner for the end of these virtual sittings, saying that MCAs log in but do not even participate.
Chege believes that the assembly is no more. In his statement he noted, “there is no more assembly. We have to define a way forward for the remaining quarter of the assembly.”
He went ahead and urged Mutura to revive the physical sittings before it’s too late. "There is nothing substantial taking place in those virtual meetings," he said in his pleas to the Speaker.
