New housing allowance for MPs, MCAs shocking

All the good work that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has done risks being undermined by its recent decision. After the public excitement over the scrapping of plenary sitting allowances for MPs, Kenyans are in for a rude shock. The same SRC has introduced a new housing allowance for MPs and MCAs which, in the next five years, will cost taxpayers Sh10 billion.

That will exceed the savings that will have been made from scrapping the sitting allowances. By not paying plenary sitting allowance to MPs (Sh5,000) and MCAs (Sh3, 000), the country would have saved Sh8.2 billion. The payments were abolished in a Kenya Gazette notice of August 9. Interestingly, this humongous new housing allowance had been quietly introduced in a gazette notice of July 28.

While legislators deserve to be facilitated to do their work, the idea of a plenary sitting allowance was akin to paying them extra to do what they are elected—and, hence, paid a salary—for. After all, most of their work is done in the plenary sittings. It, therefore, amounted to double compensation.

Of course, SRC was not popular with MPs whose five-year tenure has just ended. There is now talk that the current MPs, who include re-elected ones, could push for the scrapping of the commission so that they can have a free rein. Kenyans must reject this, as it would amount to an attempt by public officials to determine what they should be paid.

MPs, or politicians in general, are not a special group that should be treated differently from other public officials. SRC is constitutionally mandated to set and review salaries for state officers, including the lawmakers, and its caps must be respected by all.

Perhaps, the time has come to seek a review and entrench the law to shield SRC and other commissions so that groups with vested interests don’t overturn decisions that don’t favour them but are made in the public interest.

The hefty housing allowances granted to the MPs and MCAs will erode the public goodwill that SRC has enjoyed in its bid to cut down on wasteful government spending. The commission ought to review it at the earliest opportunity.