Are 30 days enough to read the Harmonised Draft Constitution?

By MUNGAI KIHANYA

The Sunday Nation

Nairobi,

06 December 2009

Before embarking on this week’s column, I had just completed reading section 4 of article 138 of chapter 11 of the Harmonised Draft Constitution of Kenya. There are 21 chapters and 316 articles in the draft and about 15 days remaining to going through the document and writing my views to the Committee of Experts (CoE). If I continue at the current speed, will I be through with by the deadline?

The Draft Constitution was published on 17th November 2009 and the public was allowed 30 days within which to read and make submissions to the CoE. If you count the days correctly, you will find that the deadline is Thursday, the 17th of December.

Now this document is over 56,000 words long; excluding the table of contents (which no body reads word for word!). So far I have read about 25,000 words and I have 31,000 to go. Obviously, then, If I continue at the current speed, I will not have completed reading by the deadline…I will have about 6,000 words to go by the 17th of December.

Have I been lazy? Perhaps: But now, I have to take this matter more seriously. With ten more chapters and 15 days to go (at the time of writing this), I have finish at least one chapter per day. That will leave me with a few days to write down my views and send them to the CoE.

Is that possible? With 31,000 remaining, I have to read at least 3,100 words each day. Now how much time will I need each day? To find out, I need to establish my reading speed.

Since my primary school days, I have always known that I am a slow reader. I estimate my speed to be about one third of the average adult: by the time I finish reading one page, most people will have gone through three.

Now the average adult reads about 200 to 250 words per minute. At that rate, it should take you two to three minutes to read this column (have you ever timed yourself?). Since my speed is about one third of the average, I probably get through 80 to 100 words per minute.

Obviously, the Draft Constitution of my country is one of the most important documents that I will ever read in my lifetime; therefore I have go through it with care and concentration – making sure I understand every sentence and thinking about its meaning (I am actually reading it with a pen in hand, writing notes as I go along). So, my speed will probably go down by half to about 50 words per minute.

To read 3,100 words at that speed, I will have to dedicate at least 60 minutes (one hour) daily for reading the Draft. The average person would only need to commit about 20 minutes.

So, were 30 days enough for the whole draft? I don’t think so, at least not for me. If I dedicated 30 minutes each day, I would read about 1,500 words daily. At that rate I would need about 38 days for reading alone. Add another 5 days for writing my comments and the total comes to 43.

What about the average person? If you allowed two days per chapter – one for reading, the other for discussing with friends, colleagues, peers etc – then you’d need at least 40 days. It appears then, that, for once, the politicians are right: 30 days were not enough for the public to read and debate the Harmonised Draft Constitution.