Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris has faulted the Minority Whip for failing to lobby members during voting of the Housing Bill 2023.
Passaris was speaking on TV47’s breakfast show Morning Cafe which airs every weekday from 6am to 10am.
“One of the reasons why a political party has a whip is because when something is near, because in Parliament so many things are going on, you might reach a vote at that particular time or it might go on to the next day.
“When you’re having a vote going to happen, your whip is supposed to call all members or post on the political wall,” she explained.
According to her, the Minority Whip Junet Mohammed did not communicate with the opposition members regarding voting of the Housing Bill.
“There was no mention that the vote was happening in the next few minutes for members to head to the House. Even I at that particular time I was not aware the vote was happening.”
However, Passaris stated that it would have been impossible for her to arrive in time for voting as she was attending the IGAD conference alongside Dagoretti North MP Beatrice Elachi and Deputy Speaker Gladys Shollei.
“We (Kenya) are the host country for the IGAD gender conference. Myself and Beatrice Elachi were nominated to be there. As the host country, we cannot be absent where we’ve got other countries attending,” the lawmaker added.
On the flip side, she praised the Executive for maintaining a majority in the National Assembly to push their agendas.
“We had a walk out of Parliament by Azimio but did that change the fact that the vote was positive towards government? No matter what they did not have the numbers.
“So if the government wants to push an agenda they have the numbers. We can go to court, we can make our statements, Azimio tried to bring in many amendments but that has to go through a vote. This is where I say we must come together and reason,” Passaris opined.
The Housing Bill passed in Parliament and is now heading to Senate before landing on the President’s desk for assenting.
Watch full interview here>>>
