MPs should be given higher pay, perks

I would like to go against the grain and play the devil’s advocate.

First, I would like Kenyans to know that the issue of MPs’ salary and perks has been blown out of proportion resulting in MPs being called all sorts of names.

Honourable members have not asked for any increment in their salaries, if so methinks that they would have engaged the Parliamentary Service Commission. What they are saying is that they would rather earn what their colleagues in the previous Parliament earned.

You can’t work hard negotiating your salaries upwards only for someone to wake up one day and slash it.

No Kenyan should attack the MPs as far as the salaries are concerned. It is Kenyans who have put heavy burdens on MPs. What would you say of a villager who travels 5km by passing neighbours who may include a bank CEO, or a  judge (who are equally paid well) to knock on the MPs door to ask for  school fees, mortuary bill or some money to repair his roof? What would you make of a journalist who bypasses a lawyer or a doctor to shake an MP’s hand and ask for some lunch”?

No wonder some members have end up living from hand to mouth after Parliament.

What they earned was little but serving people turned them into automatic philanthropists. Kenyans should sober up and stop crucifying MPs. Most of us are employed somewhere and once MPs’ pay is slashed, it is going to be replicated in many sectors including the private sector.

{Dalton Khamala, Trans Nzoia}