We can afford MPs’ pay hike, but we won’t pay
The Sunday Nation
Nairobi,
09 June 2013
I have tried my best
to avoid commenting on the raging debate about the pay-rise demanded by
our Members of Parliament, but after numerous requests from readers, I
feel compelled to say something. So here are the figures…
There are 349 MPs in
the National Assembly and they have been offered salary of Sh532,000 per
month by the Salaries and Remunerations Commission. However, the MPs
feel that this amount is too low and are demanding that their pay be
raised to the level earned by the previous House; that is Sh850,000 per
month.
That is an increment
of Sh318,000 per MP per month. With 349 Members in the House, the total
monthly increment comes to about Sh110 million. If this additional
amount is paid with effect from April 2013 (the first month that the MPs
sat in the House), it will accumulate to almost a billion shillings by
the end of this year (110 million x 9 months = 990 million).
So, what can we do
with that kind of money if we refuse to cave-in? For a start, we can get
about 36,000 laptops (at SH28,000 each) in the Computers for Class One
project. But this scheme targets all the 1,300,000 pupils expected to
enter primary school next year. Now 36,000 is just 2.8 percent of 1.3
million – a drop in the ocean!
Currently, the most
prominent problem we are facing as a country is insecurity and the first
step in tackling it is to increase the number of security personnel. The
starting salary of Police Officer is about Sh20,000 per month.
Therefore, with Sh110 million, we can employ and sustain an additional
5,500 officers in the force.
But the Kenya Police
Service has about 80,000 officers; thus 5,500 represents only 7 per cent
of the total…not a drop, but perhaps a cup in the ocean!
If we refuse to pay
what the MPs are demanding, we shall save about Sh1.3 billion shillings.
Now that’s a lot of money but it pales into insignificance when compared
to the Sh1.6 trillion national budget for 2013/14 – it is only 0.08 per
cent (less than a tenth of a per cent)!
The fact is; any
which way you look at it, the pay-rise demanded by the MPs is small
compared to all the other expenses that the Government incurs. Based on
the above figures, I can appreciate where the MPs are coming from; it is
the way you feel when you are denied a pay rise yet you know full well
that your employer can afford it.
Nevertheless, there
is something wrong with paying 350 people from one institution 0.1
percent of the National Budget…especially at time when the country is
trying to cut down its wage bill. Furthermore, it would be illegal to
pay salaries that are outside those determined by the institution
mandated by the Constitution to fix the wages of all public servants.
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