Linturi fights back on MPs pay

By Allan Kisia

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) chairperson, Sarah Serem, came under scathing attack from Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi following her stand on the salary row.

Linturi, who recently initiated the process of disbanding the SRC team, termed Serem’s promise on Wednesday that she will sue anybody who effects an illegal pay for MPs as wishful thinking.

“We are giving a lot of time and focus on Serem, who on my view is nobody. Somebody who for one reason or another is just drunk with this very little power conferred to her by the Constitution,” said the MP.

On Wednesday, Serem warned the Parliamentary Service Commission that they will be breaking the law if they pay MPs the 851,000 shillings. She maintained that Parliament broke the law when they voted to revoke gazette notice that set their salaries at Sh532, 000.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Ndhiwa MP Augostino Neto said commissioners of the SRC had gone “amok.”

He noted that the Constitution Implementation Commission chairman Charles Nyachae will be appearing before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee to give his budget.

“That is the paradox.  He might be thumping his chest out there but down here, he knows who cracks the whip,” he stated.

Nyachae has indicated that he will take legal action against the Parliamentary Service Commission and individual Members of Parliament if they draw salaries above the Sh532,000 set by the SRC.

Linturi further said the arguments brought forward by Serem are not based on any fact. He said Parliament acted within its legal mandate when it declared the gazette notice that slashed their salaries illegal.

He argued that the gazette notice was a mere communication to MPs because it did not borrow from any Act of Parliament.

“Serem thinks that the mandate of making the law is on her. If she wanted to make law, she should have vied for MP,” he added

On Tuesday, MPs unanimously voted for a motion by the Committee on Delegated Legislation that reinstated the huge pay after overturning a Gazette Notice that pegged it at Sh532, 000.

However, Serem insisted that the commission was the only body mandated under the constitution to set the salary of all state officers terming the MP’s move as an exercise in futility.

Serem warned that anyone who effects the illegal pay for MPs will be held into account and probably face prosecution for economic crimes.

MPs, soon after their swearing-in ceremony, moved to ensure a salary increment was top in the agenda.

Mid this month, protesters in Nairobi released a pig and about a dozen piglets outside Parliament Buildings to show their anger at newly elected MPs demanding higher salaries.

The unusual demonstration, organised by civil society groups, was intended to portray the MPs as greedy.

MPs however insist that they are justified to demand higher salaries.