The high court has extended orders suspending the sale of 11 parastatals following a case filed by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party.
Justice Chacha Mwita extended the orders after consolidating the ODM file with two other matters raising similar issues.
The other two cases have been filed by Gitahi Ngunyi, an economic and finance journalist and the other by Katiba Institute.
The Orange Democratic Party will be the lead file.
The respondents in the case were subsequently listed as the Speaker of the National Assembly, CS treasury, Attorney General, National Assembly, Auditor General and Senate.
The central theme of all matters touches on the constitutionality of the Privatisation Act.
The Judge said the respondents have seven days to respond to the petitions.
Written submissions are also to be filed but the Judge said they shouldn’t exceed 10 pages.
The case will be heard on March 7 at 11 am.
ODM through Advocate Jackson Awele filed its case late last year and obtained the order after it told the court the public was not engaged when it came to Privatisation Act.
It argued that some public assets like the KICC, Kenya Pipeline Company, Kenya Literature Bureau, and Kenya Seed Company can only be privatized with the consent of the people at a referendum.
This is so because they form part of the sovereign wealth of Kenya with significant cultural and strategic importance to the public.
The party in seeking the orders questioned why the government was in a rush to sell the assets.
It argued that the government has not given any credible reasons as to why it rushed to sell the assets.
“At best, the only supposed justification for the intended sales are the reported conditionalities imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for the sale of state corporations to repay alleged foreign debt obligations,” says ODM.
