MPs must go at the root of economic crisis

The National Assembly in session. Parliament is one of the most wasteful and profligate spenders of public money. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Parliament is one of the most wasteful and profligate spenders of public money and should be a prime target for proposed cuts on discretionary spending.
  • MPs should not think only of short-term concerns, but consider the wider public interest and the need to maintain proper fiscal health.

The Constitution has vested substantial budget-making power in Parliament to give a voice to the people’s representatives in determining how public resources are allocated and utilised.

But instead of being guided by the wider public interest, MPs have over the years used that power to advance their own welfare, conferring vast benefits onto themselves while showing little concern for the country’s financial health.

This financial year, for example, taxpayers will pay Sh1.7 billion pension to MPs who lost in last year’s elections, a 700 percent increase, after they awarded themselves the most generous deal in Africa.

They also lavish Parliament with public funds. In the latest budget, Parliament got Sh37.579 billion — double the Sh19 billion allocated to the newly expanded Legislature in 2013/2014.

INVESTMENT

Is it right that Parliament should receive more than two times the Sh15.168 billion offered to the Judiciary, which serves millions of Kenyans while the Parliamentary Service Commission only looks after a few hundred well-paid MPs?

Kenya has over the past one-and-a-half decades witnessed sustained growth, with significant improvements in infrastructure and social services.

The Jubilee administration has driven the most ambitious infrastructure project since the British-built Mombasa-Kampala railway a century ago — the standard gauge railway.

The SGR could be a profoundly transformational investment, consolidating Kenya’s position as the anchor regional economy.

Millions of citizens now have expanded access to affordable healthcare under the National Hospital Insurance Fund cover, mothers deliver in hospitals for free and 700,000 senior citizens receive monthly stipends.

PUBLIC FUNDS

All that costs money, and public borrowing has helped to finance some of the projects. Reviewing tax rates to manage deficits and ensure solid fiscal grounding is, therefore, prudent.

One would expect MPs to debate in a sober and mature way what the best legislative options are. Instead, what we have seen in recent days is grandstanding and hollow political rhetoric.

Even after President Uhuru Kenyatta halved the proposed fuel VAT, MPs are playing to the gallery.

Parliament is one of the most wasteful and profligate spenders of public money and should be a prime target for proposed cuts on discretionary spending.

TAX

A rationalisation (as demanded by the High Court) of expenditure items such as the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which is superfluous under the two-tier devolved system suggested by the Constitution (and commands a whopping Sh30.9 billion annual allocation), is long overdue.

MPs should forego some of this expenditure to prevent more taxation. They can’t have their cake and eat it.

Parliament still has time to redeem itself from the self-dealing path it has embarked on. MPs should not think only of short-term concerns, but consider the wider public interest and the need to maintain proper fiscal health.

Dr Obuya is a public administration and governance expert. [email protected]