Eight teams from the Office Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) undertook an inspection of all the 73 currently registered political parties headquarter offices from 21st to 24th June, 2021.
The inspection was to ascertain the level of compliance by the parties to maintain their head offices as required by sections 17 and 18 of the Political Parties Act, 2011. These requirements pertain to maintenance of party records (s. 17); inspection of records of political parties (s.18); submission to the Registrar identification particulars of party members; location of party offices and their addresses; disaggregated data of Special Interest Groups for their membership among others.
Prior to the exercise the parties were given prior notification ahead going through the reference materials, reporting requirements and necessary guidance. Some of the areas of focus for the inspection included; availability of party records; existence of constitutions, elections and nomination rules; work plans; ideologies; membership recruitment, resignation forms and membership cards; financial records; party assets among other relevant information pertinent to the course. “Authorised party officials were required to sign inspection instruments as recorded by ORPP team leaders as a sign of acceptance and concurrence of the initial findings”, noted Juliet Murimi, Director of Compliance leading the exercise.
A section of team members in discussion guided by the Director Compliance, Juliet Murimi (far right) on 17th June, 2021 in the 4th floor boardroom prior to commencement of the inspection exercise.
The exercise is expected to yield useful insights for which appropriate guidance will be given to the parties. “We appreciate that parties are at different levels in terms of establishment, therefore, this exercise besides being compliance strive, we will draw appropriate feedback out of the inspection reports from the teams to better our regulatory role”, noted the Registrar, Ann Nderitu.
Previously the Registrar has sent out team to verification exercise of the provisionally registered parties upon application for full registration as conditions for full registration requires under section 7 of the Political Parties Act, 2011. In January this year, Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD), Unified Change Party (UCP) and Democratic Action Party-Kenya (DAP-K) were inspected to ascertain establishment of functional party offices across the country.