LIVE STATE HOUSE - Ruto signing Urgent Bills into Law

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[00:00:00]is the establishment of the Directorate of Forest Regulation.

[00:00:04]The Directorate will be responsible for enforcing compliance with the act, licensing forest professionals, and promoting adherence to national forest standards.

[00:00:16]The bill further strengthens institutional coherence by bringing the forest the Kenya Forest Research Institute within the statutory ambit of the anchor law in forestry, the Forest Conservation and Management Act.

[00:00:34]To crown this ceremony, Your Excellency will be presented with the equalization >> Lord, all authority comes from you.

[00:00:41]And Lord, without you, we cannot do anything.

[00:00:45]Father, as we gather here today, we want to thank you for the opportunity given to witness the ascent of these three bills.

[00:00:53]Mighty Father, one of it being the Disaster Risk Management Bill, that's going to help us to strengthen how we prepare, how we respond to, and how we recover from disasters.

[00:01:06]Mighty Father, even this morning, we want to remember Utumishi Girls High School.

[00:01:13]We remember the families that have lost their dear ones.

[00:01:17]Almighty God, we pray that you only give them peace that surpasses all the understanding.

[00:01:23]It's only you, Lord, that can comfort them and be with them. Even the girls who are still in the hospital, we pray for permanent healing to be upon them.

[00:01:34]We remember our children in schools, Lord. May you take care of them. And we pray that you remove this spirit of uh fires in our schools in Jesus' name.

[00:01:45]Mighty Father, we recognize that good uh legislation and good governance are pillars of uh transformation in our country.

[00:01:57]Mighty Father, we thank you for these bills.

[00:02:00]Because, Lord, the two arms of government, the executive, parliament, and even the citizens have put a lot of work into this. Father, we pray that may these legislative initiatives strengthen our governance, bring justice, and enhance service delivery to our people. This morning, Lord, we thank you for the leadership of our president, Dr. William Samoei Ruto. We pray, Lord, for abundant grace to be upon him. We pray for unstoppable favor to be upon him as he leads this nation. Father, we thank you, and we exalt your holy name.

[00:02:37]For this we pray in Jesus' mighty name.

[00:02:40]Amen. Thank you.

[00:02:44]>> Your Excellency, sir, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, you may kindly take your seats.

[00:02:54]Your Excellency, the President, Your Excellency, the Deputy President, Your Excellency, the Prime Cabinet Secretary, the leadership of parliament as led by the speakers of both houses of parliament, the Honorable Attorney General, and all cabinet secretaries present, principal secretaries present, honored guests, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

[00:03:15]Good morning and welcome to the eighth presidential assent ceremony of the year 2026.

[00:03:23]Your Excellency, sir, this state ceremony is convened pursuant to Article 115 of the Constitution for the presidential assent of three National Assembly bills.

[00:03:34]The first bill that will be transmitted for presidential assent is a mediated version of the National Disaster Risk Management Bill 2023, National Assembly Bill number 24 of 2023.

[00:03:49]This bill reaches Your Excellency's after a legislative odyssey stretching back to 2014.

[00:03:58]In the 12 years, it has weathered a spirited legislative journey through the two houses of parliament before arriving for presidential assent in its mediated form.

[00:04:09]The bill establishes a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for disaster risk management through the creation of the National Disaster Risk Management Authority and county disaster risk management committees, thereby strengthening the national the nation's capacity to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

[00:04:33]Of particular significance, the bill provides a clear statutory framework for the declaration of a national state of disaster by the president where circumstances demand a coordinated national response.

[00:04:46]It further empowers the president to direct the measures necessary to safeguard life and property, including the mobilization of resources, evacuate evacuation of affected communities, and coordination of emergency response capacities.

[00:05:03]The second bill presented for presidential assent is the Forest Conservation and Management Amendment Bill number 2025.

[00:05:13]The bill The principal object of the bill is to strengthen the legal and institutional framework governing the forestry sector in order to advance forest conservation, sustainable forest management, climate-responsive forestry, forest research, and the participation of communities and other stakeholders in the stewardship of forest resources.

[00:05:38]A seminal development introduced by the bill is the establishment of the Directorate of Forest Regulation.

[00:05:45]The Directorate will be responsible for enforcing compliance with the act, licensing forest professionals, and promoting adherence to national forest standards.

[00:05:56]The bill further strengthens institutional coherence by bringing the forest the Kenya Forest Research Institute within the statutory ambit of the anchor law in forestry, the Forest Conservation and Management Act.

[00:06:14]To crown this ceremony, Your Excellency will be presented with the Equalization Fund Appropriations Bill 2025.

[00:06:23]The bill is enacted pursuant to Article 2041 of the Constitution.

[00:06:29]It appreciate It appropriates Kenya shillings 16 million 296 billion from the Equalization Fund for allocation to the 34 counties identified as marginalized by the Commission on Revenue Allocation under its second policy on marginalization.

[00:06:52]The funds will support the implementation of critical development projects across designated constituencies within these counties as specified in the schedule to the bill.

[00:07:05]Your Excellency, sir, with both houses of Parliament having discharged their law-making mandate in enacting these three pieces of legislation, it is now my most humble duty to petition Your Excellency as head of state and government to exercise the authority conferred upon you under Article 115 of the Constitution and assent these bills into law.

[00:07:30]To set the stage for the presidential assent, I seek Your Excellency's kind permission to invite the following members of the executive alongside the parliamentary leadership to witness your Excellency set your hands unto the bills.

[00:07:49]His Excellency the Deputy President His Excellency the Prime Cabinet Secretary the Speaker of the National Assembly the Speaker of the Senate Cabinet Secretaries present including the Attorney General the Majority Party and Minority Party Leaders of the National Assembly the Majority Party and Minority Party Leaders of the Senate the whips of of both the Majority and Minority Parties the Majority Deputy Majority Leader of the Senate the Attorney the Principal Secretaries Parliamentary Affairs Chairman Budget Chairman Budget Your Excellency sir, with your kind permission I now invite the Clerk of the National Assembly to present the relevant copies of the bills for your consideration and ascent.

[00:09:10]>> Your Excellency, I stand before you under the instructions of the Speakers of Houses of Parliament to present place before you three vellums for your ascent.

[00:09:21]>> Good morning.

[00:09:22]>> Good morning, Your Excellency.

[00:09:26]Excellency, the first bill to receive your ascent is a National Disaster Risk Management Authority Bill.

[00:09:37]Your Excellency, this bill has traveled a long legislative journey in houses of parliament.

[00:09:44]Initially having been introduced in the last parliament.

[00:09:48]29th, your Excellency.

[00:09:50]Initially having been introduced in parliament by the then chair of the budget and appropriations committee and member for Kikuyu constituency in the last parliament.

[00:10:04]The honorable Kimani Ichung'wah.

[00:10:06]However, the time of the end of time of last parliament came before the bill was passed by both houses.

[00:10:16]It was reintroduced this time as a majority party bill in this parliament at the beginning of the current parliament.

[00:10:25]Passed by the National Assembly with amendments.

[00:10:28]Sent to the Senate, your Excellency.

[00:10:31]And the Senate made amendments to it, which initially the two houses disagreed. Finally, the two speakers appointed a mediation committee, which agreed uh uh came up with a version which was agreed by both houses.

[00:10:46]Your Excellency, for the first time now, we have a bill providing for the manner of dealing with national disasters.

[00:10:55]It has always been a lacuna in our law.

[00:10:58]And the bill categorizes disasters in three categories.

[00:11:03]A national disaster, a disaster at the county level, and a disaster that can happen in more than one county.

[00:11:13]Your Excellency, the bill also establishes the National Disaster Management Authority and a disaster management committees with respect to the counties.

[00:11:23]The bill provides that if a disaster happens in a county and a county is able to manage the disaster, that will be handled by that county under the stewardship of the county under the stewardship your Excellency of the county disaster management committee your Excellency.

[00:11:42]The bill provides that if a disaster happens in a county and a county is unable to manage that disaster, it can be assisted by other counties or indeed the national government can come to assist in the management of that disaster.

[00:11:59]Your Excellency, the bill also provides that in case of disasters of a huge magnitude, the president can announce a situation of national disaster and therefore require all state resources for purposes of management of the disaster to be channeled towards management of that disaster, your Excellency.

[00:12:22]The second bill, your Excellency, is a bill introduced by both houses by the leader leaders of majority of both houses the senator for Kericho and the distinguished member for Kikuyu.

[00:12:37]That is a forest conservation and management >> [clears throat] >> amendment bill.

[00:12:44]Your Excellency, this is one of the LPO related bills which is amending our forestry act so as to give certain functions with respect to management of forest, the national government, the county government and KEFRI as we as we know it, your Excellency.

[00:13:04]The bill enhances sustainable forest management and provides for improvement and the participation of communities in the management of our forest including providing for how communities and how farmers can be provided with incentives in exchange of managing their land so in an ecological friendly manner.

[00:13:35]The bill reestablishes KEFRI under the principal act now which is a forest act because KEFRI previously was under the science and technology act.

[00:13:50]The last bill to get to obtain your ascent today your Excellency is the equalization fund appropriation bill.

[00:14:00]This bill your Excellency was introduced in the National Assembly by the member for Alego Usonga with the chairman of the budget and appropriation committee the honorable Samuel Atandi.

[00:14:13]It provides for how the counties will share the equalization funds as required under articles 204 and 219 of our constitution.

[00:14:27]The bill uh has listed 34 counties which will benefit from the fund and set sets out the amount to be appropriated amongst the 34 counties.

[00:14:42]The amount your Excellency is a 16.8 billion which is to be shared amongst the 34 counties uh with 500 million going to the administration of the fund in the equalization fund secretariat.

[00:15:00]>> Will this money be be available before end of the year?

[00:15:04]>> Your Excellency the way the bill is structured it provides that once the money is provided within the next 30 days each county is going to open an account at the Central Bank for purposes of managing these monies so that that money is not spent for any other person purpose by the end of the 34 counties but for purposes set out in the act which is electricity water health and sanitation your excellency.

[00:15:38]>> But what happens if it gets to the end of the year? Does it have to be re-appropriated again or once it is appropriated it is one >> Once it's appropriated your excellency it is gone because this bill even has arrears of of previous years including the year 2024 2025 which was not appropriated. And that money has now been accumulated into this one that is 2024 2025 arrears 2025 2026 current monies.

[00:16:12]And each county government will be required to open that special account at Central Bank to ensure that that money does not go back to the consolidated fund but it is spent by the counties the 34 counties your excellency.

[00:16:33]It is expected that the counties we will implement projects relating to electricity health facilities water and roads to improve marginal their situation your excellency.

[00:17:00]>> [clears throat] >> I seek your leave your excellency to end my commission for the day at this stage.

[00:17:15]Thank you.

[00:17:18]>> With your Excellency's ascent and the sacred trust it carries, the nation's sight on you now look beyond the bottom-up economic transformation agenda towards the realization of first-world status within a generation.

[00:17:34]Your Excellency, sir, I now invite you to hand over the copies of the act to His Excellency, the Deputy President, the Prime Cabinet Secretary, the Honorable Attorney General, for publication into law, and to the Cabinet Secretaries present for implementation.

[00:18:27]Your Excellency may also graciously pre present ceremonial copies of the act to the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Speaker of the Senate, the leader of the majority party in both houses of parliament, and then the members of parliament present and all esteemed state officials in attendance.

[00:19:26]>> Your Excellency will unveil and display an an open ceremonial copy of the acts while other state officials shall be at close copies.

[00:19:45]Your Excellency, sir, permit me now to request all members of the executive other than the Deputy President and the principal Prime Cabinet Secretary and the parliamentary leadership excluding the two speakers of the house to retreat to allow us progress to the photo session.

[00:20:07]>> And for the to join His Excellency Environment, Forestry, and Mining >> The environment officials can retreat.

[00:21:33]Environment officials to retreat.

[00:21:35]And then now I request uh his Excellency to be joined by the Ministry of Interior, the special programs and devolution team.

[00:21:45]That is Ministry of Interior, special programs and the devolution team.

[00:21:53]And members of the committee from both houses.

[00:22:08]Minority leader to kindly join in the photo.

[00:22:27]Interior programs officials to retreat.

[00:22:30]And we now his Excellency to be joined by the finance and budget committee of both houses.

[00:22:36]Accompanied by the national treasury officials and State Department of Devolution.

[00:22:46]We can have the majority leader, minority leader, and Senate to also join.

[00:23:02]Thank you, Excellency. That brings us to the end of the photo session.