Siaya Senator James Orengo has hit out at Deputy President William Ruto over his ‘insincere’ support to the referendum calls. The Deputy President announced on Saturday that he is in support of the referendum.
“I don’t think he (Ruto) is sincere. He says he supports, but quickly says he does not support if the agenda is to create positions for the opposition. It has nothing to do with positions, it is about making the systems better. Ruto is not sincere,” Orengo said on Monday.
During a tour of Tharaka Nithi on Saturday, Ruto said he is ready for constitutional changes to help improve Kenyans lives but not to burden them more.
“We have no problem with the referendum. Our problem is hypocrisy and conman-ship, to tell us the referendum was agreed during the handshake, you are lying to us,” Ruto said.
However, Orengo told off Ruto for spreading lies that opposition chief Raila Odinga is interested in creating positions for the opposition leaders.
The Siaya Senator said the push for a referendum has nothing to do with the creation of positions but rather to address the fault lines in the constitution.
He said the DP should go back and look at the Okoa Bill, which was drafted by NASA leadership in the run-up to last year’s general election.
Orengo said in that Bill, a wide range of issues among them devolution in respect to resources allocation, inclusivity in government appointment, changing the electoral justice, and the issue of security in the country were raised.
“We wanted to have counties receiving a higher percentage of resources from the national government. We also wanted to have a just electoral system by strengthening IEBC and generally the issue of security in our country by having police officers adhere to the Bill of Rights.”