MPs’ foreign travel allowance raised

The Parliamentary Service Commission has increased MPs’ foreign travel allowances by 20 per cent.

This followed complaints by MPs about the high cost of living and inflation in various parts of the world and the resulting high cost of accommodation and other essential services.

It has emerged that discontent is brewing in the public service over the reviewed rates for MPs, with concern that they were now higher than those paid to top civil servants.

Public Service Permanent Secretary Titus Ndambuki said on Friday that he received a circular from the Clerk of the National Assembly last week about the new rates which were effected in April.

“We have been trying to check with the Clerk of Parliament on how they determined the rates because there is pressure from the civil service and a feeling that they also need to be paid at the same rates as the MPs,” he said.

Mr Ndambuki was among a team of Permanent Secretaries and top civil service technocrats that met Parliament’s ad hoc committee on the high cost of living on Friday. The team was led by Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura.

Mr Ndambuki said there was a need to harmonise the new rates for MPs and those of ministers and assistant ministers to have a common rate throughout when they are travelling abroad.

For travel to the US, the MPs’ per diem has been increased from about $525 to $1,000.

Contacted for comment, Naivasha MP John Mututho said the increase should be looked at from the perspective of the cost of accommodation and other services that MPs use when they travel. “No one wants to go and save, it is about getting decent accommodation,” he said.

The MP said accommodation rates were high in most countries and MPs were often forced to top up from their own pockets to afford a decent place to stay.

In Nigeria, he said, a VIP would part with about $700 dollars per night in an hotel equivalent to Holiday Inn in Westlands.
“So it is on that note that MPs complained; you don’t want to sleep in River Road for security reasons,” he said.
At the meeting in Parliament, Mr Muthaura said the size of delegations on official foreign travel was trimmed in a government effort to curb expenditure.

The committee, chaired by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba, had asked whether the government could regulate travel of its officials in the business and first class flying service.

“Why can’t they travel in the economy class; it may seem like little money but, at the end of the day, if we save in all sectors, then it is a substantial saving,” said Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo.