MPs meeting to discuss new pay

The thorny issue of Kenya MPs pay will be dealt with during the Speaker’s Kamukunji (informal meeting) in Parliament’s Old Chambers Thursday .

The kamukunji is a culmination of three weeks of negotiations between House Speaker Kenneth Marende, the head of parliament’s administrative wing –the Parliamentary Service Commission and key officials at the Treasury and in government.

Although the Nation could not independently confirm who had attended the top secret meeting held on Tuesday to reach a compromise between Parliament and the Executive, those who are likely to have played a part in sorting out the impending deadlock are Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Attorney General Amos Wako.

Feedback

They have already met MPs to explain to them that their perks won’t be taxed if the proposed Constitution sails through in the August 4 referendum.

The feedback from the meeting between the PSC and government is what MPs will be waiting for at the Kamukunji.

The MPs had vowed not take a break or end their silent go-slow on government’s legislative agenda, until they meet President Kibaki to get his position on their unanimous resolution that their income should be increased and then taxed.

The MPs are of the view that only President Kibaki holds the key to unlock the impasse with Treasury over the impending taxation of their perks that made them push for an immediate pay increase from the current Sh851,000 to Sh1.1 million.

The lawmakers have since dismissed Mr Kenyatta and Prime Minister Raila Odinga for opposing the move as making “populist statements” with an eye on 2012, when elections are expected.

The President’s stand, according to Mr Kenyatta and the AG, is that MPs perks won’t be touched until the next Parliament, if the proposed law is endorsed at the referendum.

But MPs still want an assurance cast in the country’s statutes to cushion them against an impending loss of income, should they be forced to pay tax.

With just 13 days to go to the referendum, the government is keen on a last ditch effort to get MPs to back the proposed Constitution as the campaigns for and against the document intensify.

The MPs, in their second kamukunji held last week, said that their “side of the story” had been “grossly misrepresented” and that all they had approved was “just Sh12,000” above what they earn.

They said the problem was on the government to justify to the public that their pay increase will be a charge on the Exchequer “yet we’ll be paying tax on the same money.”

The MPs still threatened to shoot down the Appropriations Bill whose deadline is August and the Finance Bill, traditionally approved in October.