President William Ruto on Wednesday signed into law the Statute (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill.
The law brings changes to various provisions of the sixteen (16) Acts of Parliament.
These include; replacing the Public Service Commission with an Advisory Board in the recruitment and recommending of deputy Solicitors-General and State Counsel in the office of the Attorney-General for appointment and promotion.
The Advisory Board will comprise the Attorney-General (as chair), the Principal Secretaries for Public Service and National Treasury, the chairperson of the PSC, the chairperson of the Council of the Institute of Human Resource Management and the president of the Law Society of Kenya.
The solicitor-general will be the Secretary to the Board.
The new law now makes the Chief Registrar the chief administrator of the Judiciary with specific functions relating to the role of the commissioners and custody of the register of convicted sexual offenders, among other functions.
The Chief Registrar will be the custodian of the roll of commissioners and give powers to administer oaths to the Registrar and the Deputy Registrar of both superior and subordinate courts.
It also gives the Council of the Law Society of Kenya additional powers to make rules with regard to the admission of advocates.
The amendments have also substituted Utamaduni Day with Mazingira Day as a public holiday to be observed on October 10, every year. It will be a day for all Kenyans to participate in environment conservation activities including tree planting.
In other changes, the Registrar of Companies shall be responsible for the registration of trusts, issuing of certificates of incorporation, keeping and maintaining a register of trusts and making regulations.
It allows the President to establish more than one specialised degree awarding institution specialising in national security issues, and that the declaration of institutions as technical universities shall only apply to public institutions that are or previously were a National Polytechnic or have the requisite facilities and human resource capacity for a technical university.
The law amends the Employment Act (Cap. 226) to exempt the National Intelligence Service from the application of the Act in the same manner as other national security organs are exempted.
It amends the Industrial Training Act (Cap. 237) to provide that the date for remitting the training levy be the 9th day of the month.
The new law amends the Veterinary Surgeons and Veterinary Para-Professionals Act (Cap. 366) to make minor corrections to the provisions relating to the definition of “animal”, “animal resource industry”, “register”, as well as “veterinary medicine”; insert the definition of “Cabinet Secretary” and “veterinary practice”; and correct grammatical errors in sections 6(2)(a) and 6(2)(n).
The Civil Aviation Act (Cap. 394) will now widen the scope of aeronautical information circulars in the definition of “publication”. It increases the period in which the Director-General is required to submit an annual report from three to six months after the end of the financial year.
The law amends the Traffic Act (Cap. 403) to incorporate the use of technology in the management of minor traffic offences under section 117(3); and enhance the penalties for the offences.
The Public Finance Management Act (Cap. 412A) will delete sections 40(3) and 40(4) to cure the inconsistency in the provisions of the Act on the submission of the Finance Bill.
The new law further amends the Value Added Tax (Cap. 476) to delete the supply of denatured ethanol under tariff number 2207.20.00 from the supplies which are not subject to value-added tax.