Elected MPs have signalled that they will be demanding
higher salaries and allowances.
Even before they are sworn into office for the start of the
12th Parliament, a member of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC)
dismissed the new salary structure for MPs set by the Salaries and Remuneration
Commission (SRC).
Gladys Wanga, the Homa Bay Woman Representative-elect and a
member of the outgoing PSC , said the new pay was meant to rob Parliament of
its status, adding that the MPs would not accept anything less than the package
legislators had in the 11th Parliament.
Ms Wanga faulted SRC for the manner in which it handled MPs'
salaries, saying there was a deliberate move to weaken the position of MPs and
senators, hence the decision to lower their salaries and allowances.
"There is a mission to demean MPs and reduce them to
beggars as was the case in the 1990s, when elected leaders would go begging in
Government offices on Fridays. We will not sit down and watch as this plan is
systematically executed," she said.
In July, SRC chairperson Sarah Serem released a new
structure that reduced the salaries of State officers - from the President, his
deputy, Cabinet secretaries and speakers to principle secretaries, governors,
MPs, senators and Members of the County Assembly - rescuing more than Sh8
billion from a bloated public service wage bill.
Ms Serem reduced MP and senator salaries from Sh710,000 to
Sh621,000, and scrapped the Sh5,000 sitting allowances paid for attending
plenary sessions.
The salary team further removed all allowances paid to
committee members for attending respective House committees.
Also scrapped was the mileage allowance claimed by
legislators for their visits to their constituencies; SRC instead created a
zoning criterion, with MPs getting a flat rate of Sh266,000 for those whose
constituencies are within a radius of 750km from Nairobi.
The commission also dropped the car grants enjoyed by MPs at
the beginning of every parliamentary term, instead enlisting their eligibility
to a maximum of Sh7 million in car loans, while also reducing their mortgages
to a maximum Sh20 million.
Serem said all State officers would earn the gazetted pay
starting at the beginning of the new term and notified them as they began
election campaigns for their positions.
It is these measures that Wanga protested against yesterday,
saying while the rationalisation of the packages included all other State
officers, the legislators appeared more targeted.
She said the new MPs would discuss their next move once the
House convened.
"We will not try to arm-twist anyone but we will have
to talk to our members and engage in serious conversations so we can get at
least what was being paid in the 11th Parliament," she said.
