Taxpayers to fork out Sh342m for extra 190 MPs’ salary bill

• Kenyans to shoulder this additional burden if majority vote for draft law

For the good health of the MPs, the 325 new faces will get good medical cover of Sh572,000 every year. The total amount to keep the doctors happy and the waheshimiwa healthy will be Sh1.9 billion.

With 80 new electoral units and a current constituency office budget of Sh756 million, we are looking at an extra Sh288 million. That is Sh1.04 billion annually for the constituency offices.

The much touted Constituency Development Fund, which in this year’s budget was Sh13 billion (2.5 per cent of ordinary revenues), will definitely rise.

Going by the current rate of an average of at least Sh60 million per constituency, then the CDF bill will rise to Sh17.4 billion – an extra Sh4.4 billion.

But perhaps with the devolution of both power and resources as proposed by the PSC, the CDF will be abolished. The question is: Will the MPs accept that?

The mileage claims to be filed by MPs are also set to strain the taxpayer further because whenever the lawmakers travel out of Nairobi, they are paid for it.

This fiscal year, Parliament set aside Sh510 million for the 222 lawmakers. With 412 MPs in 2013, assuming again the rates will not rise, we get Sh946.5 million – an extra Sh436.5 million.

For foreign trips – to allow the honourable men and women to see the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower in Paris or even to sample the nightlife in Rotterdam – the taxpayer will have to fork out Sh502 million. This is an extra Sh231 million.

After dutifully serving for five years in 2017, each of the lawmakers will take home Sh1.5 million as “winding up allowance”.