Members of parliament are laughing all the way to the bank this week as they collect their first gross salary of Sh 750,000 after working for just a day.
The Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) is in the process of dispatching the January salary for the 207 MPs sworn in last Tuesday.
This is despite the fact that the MPs have officially worked for a single day, Tuesday January 15, when they elected Kenneth Marende as the Speaker and Farah Maalim as his deputy before they were sworn in.
President Kibaki has since prorogued parliament until March.
The cash includes a basic salary of Sh 300,000 and a minimum commuted mileage (Sh 75,000), entertainment allowance (Sh 60,000), extraneous allowance (Sh 30,000), house allowance (Sh 70,000) and monthly car maintenance allowance (Sh 247,000).
The MPs will also get as part of January remuneration, mileage calculated at sh 115 per kilometre and gym membership allowance of sh 2,000.
An MP is also entitled to vehicle fixed cost allowance (Sh 336,000), monthly committee meeting attendance allowance (Sh 40,000) and constituency allowance (sh 50,000).
And since they were sworn in, the legislators have been flocking the clerk's office as well as the cash office to fill the required forms for a raft of other allowances they are entitled to.
These include Sh 3.3 million car loan and sh 10 million loan to buy a house, both of which are interest-free.
"I cannot tell you anything about salaries. You are always sensational when it comes to our salaries," said one MP who also served in the ninth parliament as he left the cash office yesterday.
Unlike in most other countries, where an independent committee sets salaries for MPs, Kenyan MPs determine their own pay.
Towards the end of the ninth parliament, the lawmakers voted themselves a sh 1.5 million gratuity, making the Kenyan parliament probably the only institution in the world in which employees are paid both a gratuity and a pension.
Further the vice-president, official leader of opposition, ministers, assistant ministers, whips and Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC) members are paid extra allowances, sometimes amounting to sh 300,000 a month.
There is nothing like a Kenyan politician..a marvel to watch *smirk*....its like they live in an alternate universe arrghh!
ReplyDeleteThis is purely disgusting...all the expense of hard working kenyan citizens..and the blood, sweat and tears of their children in the diaspora..there should be a special hell for this politicians..to send these people to the same hell as even the worst pervert would still be injustice! Disgusting!!!
ReplyDeletethey should each one then adopt five children from different parts of the country.Are they not sensitive to the poverty in a Kenya that has many citizens with their papers in the pockets and digging in the fields because there is neither work nor money to pay their services.
ReplyDeleteIt is really discouraging. God does not tolerate arrogant injustices. They laugh as they collect their alarming amount and the children from northern Kenya shed tears for lack of a plate of maize without beans and a rag to cover their nakedness. Let us think once and again.
hey,
ReplyDeleteam glad am not the only one outraged by this bit of news. we are in the process of organising a demonstration to register our feelings. we have an events page on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events#!/event.php?eid=129016080467412) for the same purpose.
please join us. we hope to get the permit and police escort. pay us a visit on our wall and drop some ideas. even if they deny us the chance to demonstrate let us have a virtual demonstration. let us be felt and let it go into history's records that we were not happy with this.