Coast Constitutional convention.
DEC 15, 2009
BY EUGENE OMILO
With two days left to beat the deadline, coastal people yesterday submitted their views to the committee of experts giving their stand on various matters that affect the region directly for consideration in the final draft.
The views were arrived at after a day long forum attended by over 200 participants from all constituencies in the province.
Top on the list was the proposal to have an appellate Kadhi’s court established alongside the Kadhi’s court to give Muslims a chance to fair trial as well as giving the voters power to directly vote for their leaders including governors and mayors.
The delegates feel the current state where parties who do not feel satisfied with judgment given by the Kadhi courts have to go to magistrates’ courts to have their cases heard afresh is not fair enough.
Another of the issues the participants agreed on was to give the regional governments more powers to have a say in their resources and property including land and inclusion of a clause that allows for secession of the protectorate from the former colony shopuld discripancies arise between the two.
The delegates want the region to retain up to 80 per cent of their financial resources and submit 20 per cent to the central government.
Public land like fish landing sites and beach access be left to the control of the communities around them as opposed to the central government.
The delegates also want proceeds from game parks also be the preserve of the local community.
The views which will be published in local dailies also include proposals to have the functions of the Teacher’s service Commission to be devolved so that each region has the final say on recruitment of teachers.
Likewise, they want functions of the National land commission be devolved to ensure the regional government has the final say on all land issues affecting the region.
The delegates also want the period of land lease to non citizens be reduced from the current proposal of 99 years to 49 years.
On the Executive, the forum passed that all presidential appointees including ministers be first approved by Parliament.
At the same time, they wanted the recall clause that many MPs have been opposing to apply not only to members of the national assembly but all elected leaders from councilors to the head of state.
The resolutions were arrived at during a meeting dubbed Coast Constitutional Convention organized by Muslims for Human Rights at the Whitesands hotel on Monday.
Muhuri’s executive director Khalid Hussein said various community leaders from all constituencies in the province had been invited to seek consensus on various contentious issues in the harmonized draft directly affecting the coastal region.
Khalid said legal experts Yusuf Abubakar and Dr Mohammed Swazuri who were moderators at the forum prepared the final draft of the views to presented to the committee of experts.
The participants included religious leaders, women and youth leaders and representatives of special groups and political parties.
ENDS.
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