BBI Secretariat Submits 4.4 Million Signatures to IEBC

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) on Thursday received 4.4 million signatures from the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) Secretariat.

The signatures were submitted to IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati together with the BBI Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2020.

BBI Secretariat co-chair Dennis Waweru noted that 800,000 out of the 5.2 million signatures collected were weeded out after internal verification.

“As you are aware, the minimum requirement is 1 million signatures and so we have decided to submit 4.4million signatures,” he said.

Speaking after receiving the signatures at IEBC headquarters in Nairobi, Chebukati said the commission will begin verifying the signatures once it receives a budget from the National Treasury.

“As a commission, our work starts here, after receiving the signatures. The soft copy will save us the trouble of typing out the hard copies. We shall now proceed and request for a budget from the National Treasury.”

“As soon as we get the budget and exchequer then we shall now get a team…our team is already available…we have a referendum committee which will undertake the exercise of signature verification,” Chebukati said.

He said the commission will be giving regular updates on the process, adding that the validation exercise will be done in adherence to Covid-19 protocols.

If IEBC verifies the signatures, the bill will be forwarded to the 47 county assemblies for debate and approval.

The bill will require the support of at least 24 county assemblies to sail through after which it will be forwarded to the National Assembly and Senate, paving the way for a referendum.