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.
