IEBC verified BBI signatures in support of the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Bill, 2020 have surpassed the required one million mark.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) yesterday posted on its website a list of 1.33 million verified signatures, suggesting that the Bill was now destined to the 47 county assemblies for debate before the country can go for the planned referendum.
According to Article 257 of the Constitution, once the electoral commission is satisfied that the initiative has the backing of at least one million registered voters, it shall proceed to submit the draft Bill to each of the 47 counties for consideration within three months.
BBI Bill Expected To Pass At The County Level
If it gets the approval of at least 24 counties, the Bill shall be introduced in the National Assembly and Senate.
The commission announced that the verification was ongoing as their clerks were still poring over at least 4.4 million signatures submitted by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) secretariat co-chairs Junet Mohamed and Dennis Waweru.
IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said a full list of verified supporters of the initiative would be published at the end of the exercise.
The Commission would like to clarify that the data capture and verification process is still going on as planned and should any supporter miss their name in the interim list, then it is still at verification stage
Mr Chebukati
The commission asked the public to scrutinise the list and raise an objection if their signatures are used without their consent.
In preparation of an interim report, the agency undertook data cleaning by removing incomplete records that included missing signatures, ID numbers and names as well as duplicates.
“Further, the Commission has uploaded a list of verified supporters. Anyone who has been captured as a supporter without their consent can report to the Commission by writing to the Acting Commission Secretary/CEO indicating their objections,” stated the notice.
ODM leader Raila Odinga has since heightened BBI popularization campaigns.
BBI Commission
The BBI Secretariat has since expressed gratitude to the commission for verifying the signatures which were presented last year. saying it marks a great milestone for the process.
With the clearance from IEBC we now have a short time to have the BBI Referendum Bill tabled in all the 47 county assemblies in order to have a referendum conducted as soon as possible. The secretariat will soon be giving more directions with regard to the process
Dennis Waweru, Co-Chair BBI Secretariat.