A video clip surfaced online of Bomet County Assembly members conducting the house business in the local dialect.

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In the video clip, the MCAs can be heard speaking in Kalenjin dialect during a Committee on Lands, Housing and Urban planning meeting.

Old men and women from Chepchabus, Konoin in Bomet County, who’re displaced by white settlers, met with the committee. Therefore, the ward representatives settled on using their local dialect.

PHOTO/COURTESY

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Their reason for using the local dialect was because a section of the members felt the matter at hand was serious and they could not discuss it in the language of the ‘oppressor’

This elicited mixed reactions from members of the public with one section defending the legislators asserting are at liberty to express themselves in any language they felt comfortable to express themselves.

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The other section of the public condemned the move, saying using local dialect in public offices is abhorrent while there are only two languages recognised as official in the country namely English and Swahili.

In 2021, former Managua MP Elias Mbau tabled a motion in parliament restricting the use of vernacular in public places and sought to make it illegal.

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However, the motion was turned down termed unconstitutional and superfluous, since the constitution directs that the official languages are Swahili and English.

The then Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Public Service, Aden Sugow, opposed the motion, saying it was impractical.

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