Thank you Grace for asking those questions. I will speak on behalf of Mzalendo Trust - Dokeza project, though I am not the official voice for the project. Mzalendo Trust's particular area of concern is what the Parliamentarians (National Assembly and Senate) do on our behalf regarding the three areas as stipulated in our constitution; representation, legislation and oversight. Mzalendo Trust had been covering the representation aspect quite well, but the other two "jobs" needed to be covered to complete their interest in what Parliamentarians do for us. The Dokeza platform (https://dokeza.mzalendo.com/) was envisaged to go beyond what Jadili (http://jadili.ictpolicy.org/) was doing, especially in the area of public participation feedback going back to Parliament in a way that is formal and transparent. In this vein, I will try and answer the questions Grace posed. 1. We (Mzalendo Dokeza team) had a series of meetings with the Clerk to the National Assembly, the Clerk to the Senate and Kenya Law Review in particular to understand what would be the Draft Bill Process. How is a legislative Bill drafted? Who can draft a legislative Bill? After the First Reading, who is it presented to the Public for participation? How can we record the participation? The important part was to track the changes on a Legislative Bill as it went through a particular Parliamentary house and committees. Parliament conceded that this should really be done by them and made available to the public. However, we got to understand, from the Kenya Law Review, that currently the only official versions of any Bill are those that come from the Government Printer. The Bills on the Kenya Law Review website are PURCHASED from the Government Printer. So Dokeza hopes to work with Parliament to receive Bill versions and post them on the Dokeza Platform as the bills go through the different stages. However, the official Act of Parliament will be on the Kenya Law Review website. This is a work in progress requiring new policies, e.g. standing orders to allow public access, or a policy implementation under the Access to Information Act, 2016. 2. Committee reports are simply not accessible since there has been no law or . Dokeza is envisaged to collect public contributions to the legislative bills through annotations as well as constructive comments from experts of law and the public. These are submitted, after the public participation period is over, to the committee stage as a formal memorandum to accompany the bill. Where the public contributions make it into the final bill, the incorporated changes will be highlighted on the final Act of Parliament on the Dokeza platform for archival purposes in the documentation of public participation in the legislative bill development process in Kenya. Hopefully the Dokeza Platform can do this at a later date once the policies are in place. 3. The issue of the Parliament's communication with the public has to be revisited to go beyond the passive airing of proceedings in both houses. In my opinion, KBC should have a channel, on radio at least of programming MADE from the work done in Parliament. Schedules for public fora, special interests and all manner of stake holders may be engaged through interviews or could create content for a channel such as this. Then the public can fully engage on various other platforms, citing content that comes directly from Parliament and sharing it on social platform of choice. Due to the positive feedback Mzalendo Trust got from the "Peoples' Shujaaz" awards given to Parliamentarians who had excelled in representation, legislation and oversight, the next step would be to interview and cover work done specifically by our Parliamentarians beyond the political soundbites that we regularly consume. There is already a lot of public activity, where exerts of TV video programming on Youtube are shared on Facebook and WhatsApp as an example of what is possible. Senate can definitely look into a law that would give counties the legal means to allow access to legislative bills in county parliaments to the public and and collect documentable public feedback to facilitate the legislative bill development. That would be a good first step documenting and reviewing public participation in legislative bill development at the county level. Jimmy Gitonga, Lead, Design and Development, Dokeza Platform
Message: 1 Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2018 14:47:19 +0300 From: "Grace Mutung'u (Bomu)" <[email protected]> To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 3 of Talk to the Senate (2017-2022 Priorities)
Kanini, On top of the great suggestions for counties, Senate ICT Committee should champion use of ICTs for public participation even at Parliament. I noticed that for example, most of the time we are discussing a Bill, we are never sure of the version and Bunge does not post the same Bill/links on its site.
Going beyond participation is feedback. We contribute our input but never know whether it was of any use. Why cant committee reports be uploaded regularly? Why can't our submissions be published so that anyone who ever wants to learn about the issue can see the issues behind the issue? Would it be possible to let the public follow the life of a Bill they have interest in online as it moves through the House?
Do committees have public communication channels? It would be nice to follow the ICT Committee on social media to learn its agenda etc. Such information would somehow trickle to radio, newspapers and other media and hopefully contribute to diversifying local content.
On public information, I notice that both Houses have a tv channel. But the channels go blank when Houses are not in session? Can Senate use the non live broadcasting time to show committee sessions or educate the public on the many aspects of the legislature?
Wishing the committee all the best,