MPs plot to kick out salaries team

Salaries commission chairperson Sarah Serem and her deputy Daniel Ogutu during a press conference in January. Photo/SALATON NJAU

A plot to cripple the salaries commission and kick out the officials over their stand on the MPs’ pay is under way.

More than 30 MPs who spoke to journalists on the sidelines of a Jubilee Coalition meeting said the push to cut the MPs’ pay was “unconstitutional”.

The Constitution gives the Salaries and Remuneration Commission the power to set the pay of State officers and advise on the remuneration of all public officials.

But the MPs-elect said the manner in which the commission executed the pay cut for the lawmakers was wrong.

Fear of backlash

The legislators said Parliament would kick out the commission chairperson Sarah Serem like they did to former Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission boss Patrick Lumumba for his zeal in asking them to stick to the “straight and narrow”.

They said Ms Serem had no basis for reducing the pay of MPs from Sh851,000 to Sh532,500.

The legislators first plan to quash the gazette notice of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission setting out the new pay.

They argued that because it is “subsidiary legislation”, all they needed to do was “just revoke it”.

The second step is to amend the Constitution to disband the SRC and give that mandate to other commissions.

The third step will be to kick out Ms Serem and the commissioners, that is if the constitutional amendment fails.

Apart from Mr Jimmy Angwenyi, the MP-elect for Kitutu Chache North, none of the other MPs agreed to speak on record for fear of a backlash.

Although the Jubilee Coalition leadership, through President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, have said that they would push the wage bill down and pump more money into development projects, their troops appear to be pulling the rag from under their feet.

The legislators said it “seemed like Ms Serem set out to punish people because they have been elected as MPs”.

“It looks like she wants to emasculate Parliament; we don’t want to go back where we have members all over town extorting businessmen for money for petrol,” Mr Angwenyi said.

The lawmakers are planning to amend the law to provide for separate commissions to tackle salaries of State officials.

They said Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution chairman, Mr Charles Nyachae, whose pay, they argued was more than Sh1 million, had no role in deciding MPs’ pay, yet he reported to a parliamentary committee.

Mr Angwenyi noted that Ms Serem failed to show why MPs should earn less than what their counterparts in the Tenth Parliament earned.