The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party will not take part in the National Assembly's special sitting convened by Speaker Justin Muturi.
In a statement dated Tuesday, July 12, ODM National Chairman and National Assembly Minority Whip, John Mbadi, stated that the sitting was convened illegally and unprocedurally.
He stated that the Special Sitting scheduled for Wednesday, July 13, was convened without being gazetted as stipulated in the Standing Orders.
"Therefore, I want to advice our members not to attend any Special Sittings and to ignore any further communications in regard to the sittings," Mbadi noted in his statement.
The sitting was convened by Muturi to discuss the controversial Huduma Bill.
On July 11, Suna East Member of Parliament, Junet Mohammed, poked holes into the impromptu sitting stating that it was part of a sinister plan by Kenya Kwanza to push a hidden agenda.
Junet claimed that Deputy President William Ruto would use his ties with Speaker Muturi to introduce a motion of installing a Clerk to the National Assembly. However, Muturi dismissed the claims terming them as unfounded and malicious.
The Huduma Bill continues to stir controversy in the political sphere especially with its proposal touching on the use of Huduma cards in the voter registration process and the actual voting.
If passed into law, IEBC may be required to use the Huduma cards in future elections to register and identify voters.
In addition, the Bill proposes that every new born in the country be assigned a Huduma Namba, which apart from its identification purposes, will be used to follow up on tax remittances once they attain the statutory age of 18 years.
"Every resident individual who has enrolled into the NIIMS established under the Huduma Act shall by default be registered as a taxpayer upon attaining the age of 18 years," the Bill reads in part.
Officials from the Directorate of Immigration Services were opposed to the proposal to have the card also serve immigration functions. They argued that an aggregation of Kenya's personal data would declare some of its staff redundant.
Notably, Speaker Muturi called off the sitting blaming the government printer for not gazetting the notice of the meeting, thus rendering it a contravention of the law.
