NAIROBI, KENYA: When civil society activists stormed the gates of Parliament with pigs recently to protest the attempt by MPs to reject their pay as set out by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, we thought they had got the message that Kenyans are outraged by their greed and their unrelenting quest to raid the taxpayer’s purse.
It was, therefore, shocking that they went ahead to degazette the notice on salaries as set out by the commission led by Sarah Serem. In so doing, the MPs are dragging the country back to the days of the Eighth and Ninth parliaments which abused the principle of separation of powers to raid the public coffers with monumental disdain.
Parliamentary reforms that started with the Eighth Parliament were noble since they sought to give the august House independence to enable it play its rightful role of not only making laws but also checking the other two arms of Government.
It is in this same spirit that the Parliamentary Service Commission was formed to enable the House run its own budget without being controlled or arm-twisted by the Executive as was the case in the days of the one-party rule when the position of president was so powerful that the other two arms of Government took orders from State House.
Carried away by selfishness, the Eighth Parliament’s first agenda in 2003 was to bring an amendment to the National Assembly Remuneration Act (Act No. 9 of 1975) to increase their salaries and allowances threefold. The amendments were accelerated through the stages and eventually signed into law by then President Kibaki in April of the same year.
With that amendment, the MPs increased their salaries from Sh336,000 to over Sh870,000 a month. To add insult to injury, they backdated their pay to eight days before they were sworn-in, thereby ripping the taxpayer twice.
In 2008, MPs in the Ninth Parliament followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. They awarded themselves a car purchase grant of Sh3.3 million and threw in an annual car maintenance allowance of Sh900,000.
They also raised the constituency allowance, mileage and house allowances, entertainment allowance and sitting allowances to bring the monthly pay of an MP to between Sh900,000 and Sh1.2 million depending on other committee responsibilities. Besides this, they travelled out on flimsy excuses to line their pockets with taxpayers money as travel allowances.
Driven by greed again, these same MPs amended the law to award themselves a “winding-up” allowance that was largely seen as a ploy to raid the public coffers to build their war chests for the general election campaigns in December of the same year.
This triggered strikes from various sectors demanding pay increments, while advancing the argument that if government could pay MPs that high, then it could also afford to pay them.
It is against this background that when the opportunity to review the constitution came along, Kenyans were very clear that it was a mistake to allow anyone or any group of people to determine their own remuneration. This gave birth to the SRC, which has done a good job in fixing salaries.
By trying to arm-twist SRC, the MPs should know they are actually blackmailing Kenyans and should not be allowed to get away with this brazen impunity.
