On salaries, MPs must be stopped in their tracks

If I were to be asked, I would say the Salaries and Remuneration Commission did not go far enough in curbing our MPs’ insatiable appetite for public funds. The SRC’s timing was impeccable, launching a bombshell of sorts at a time when most of the legislators are preoccupied with seeking the vote so that they can resume their place in the feeding trough.

The commission is an independent creature of the 2010 Constitution. Its main mandate is “to set and regularly review the remuneration and benefits of all state officers”, and to advise both national and county governments on how to regulate the remuneration of all other public officers.

However, so far, the SRC has been unable to force its will on legislators for a simple reason: blackmail. That Parliament has the power to starve even a constitutional commission like the SRC of funds through chicanery is unconscionable. Indeed, few organs of governance have the muscle to override legislation that involves a central legislative function like approving or rejecting this or that allocation in the budget.

IN AGREEMENT

When it comes to looking after their own welfare, legislators are always in total agreement, whether they are in government or not. With single-minded unity of purpose, they have been able to set their own emoluments in the recent past and they have done so with great relish. As a result, our MPs are the second highest paid in Africa – after Nigeria’s – and among the top five in the world, again coming second after Nigeria’s. And we are among the poorest countries in the world!

It is not clear whether what should be a national shame is to them a source of pride, but they sure don’t behave as if they care. It is, in fact, confounding to hear the same chaps rail at the government for borrowing too heavily in an effort to fulfil its pledges; they can never admit they are partly to blame for this situation.

Should MPs really have the power to set their own remuneration in the first place? Constitutional experts think not. The fact that they have been doing so until the SRC intervened means they believe they can change the Constitution at whim. They can no longer be allowed to intimidate independent commissions through rogue legislation.

REJECTED RECOMMENDATIONS

In 2013, when the SRC tried to regulate the pay of MPs, they rejected the recommendations, some of them arguing that they are not State officers and therefore not under its control. In the end, they got their way by arm-twisting the commission to allow them enhanced sitting allowances, mileage allowances, and many other benefits like car grants, generous house mortgages and so on.

By so doing, they got to earn more than before, which was scandalous. There is no telling what the new crop of MPs will do to maintain their privileges but one thing is sure: If they are allowed to get their own way against the new pay-cuts, there will be great trouble in this country considering that the wage bill is already unsustainable.

But listening to some politicians talk, this is all hogwash. Since they believe they are the power, they cannot see how anyone can dare limit what they “earn”, and they are bracing themselves for a major fight when the 12th Parliament convenes. “It is against labour laws”, says one. “Once a salary has been given to an individual, it cannot be reduced.” Another argues that the money saved will simply be eaten. “It will not achieve much in the absence of political will at the top to fight corruption,” he says.

MAJOR FIGHT

With such non-sequiturs, it is already clear the SRC has a major fight ahead unless the changes announced are ring-fenced with the law. This is why the argument by the former chairman of the Commission on Revenue Allocation, Mr Micah Cheserem, makes sense when he advises the SRC to entrench the changes in the Constitution to defend them from ravenous MPs. The only problem is he does not say how this is to be done.

Why our MPs are unable to relate their huge earnings to the precarious livelihoods of most of their electors is beyond understanding. An MP who earns more than a million shillings for working three days a week should not really be living in the same planet as a doctor in a public hospital who has been earning a mere Sh126,000.

Magesha Ngwiri is a consulting editor.

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