The wives of key leaders don’t need this money

PRESIDENT KIBAKI, VP MUSYoka and Prime Minister Odinga are no doubt the most pampered public servants in Kenya.

In addition to princely salaries, courtesy of the rest of us ordinary mortals, they enjoy almost unlimited benefits and perks that take care of virtually every earthly need.

These include shopping, household, entertainment, holidays, leisure and other personal expenses which really should not be charged on the long-suffering taxpayer – but no audit raises a query.

Now the three wise gentlemen find it fit to extend to their spouses further entitlements in the form of cash infusions from the public coffers for assignments nobody quite understands.

Now, I do not begrudge a First Lady and the others – I’m not sure whether they would be Second Lady, Third Lady, or whatever – having their official activities funded by the State.

I suppose spouses in such exalted positions do have some public duties that come with having married right or married lucky.

There will be dinners and cocktails to host, charitable work to be undertaken, all sorts of official travel and countless activities that come with the territory. Some of those functions might even involve a bit of sprucing up in the wardrobe, hair and facial departments.

It would be extremely mean and churlish of us to expect them to dip into their own handbags to finance activities that are undertaken principally in support of the quasi-official roles they play.

It is thus right and proper that – clothes, hairdo and make-up excepted – we, the taxpayers, foot the bill.

It would be entirely wrong, however, to simply throw wads of cash at Mrs Lucy Kibaki, Mrs Ida Odinga and Mrs Pauline Musyoka for them to spend as they wish. Not a single shilling should go into their respective personal bank accounts.

Any provisions for spousal expenses should not be paid directly, but drawn from the official budget of the principal spouse who is in Government service.

Such expenses as envisaged should not be paid out as salary for no recognisable job done, or as some ex-gratia payment; but operated within public service rules and regulations as applied to public servants authorised to incur expenditure for defined functions or projects.

Since the beneficiaries in this case are not even public servants, it follows that they cannot be allowed to sign, draw any cash or sign any expense vouchers. Such tasks would have to be entrusted to staff in the offices of their husbands.

I don’t know where this whole business of paying the far-from-needy spouses of our key leaders came from. I have no idea whether Mama Ngina Kenyatta was ever paid an allowance.

IT WAS WHEN PRESIDENT KIBAKI came to power that Kenya again had a First Lady and the allowance came into being. One might recall that it was very tactlessly increased just before the General Election of last year – something about an increased workload.