Kenya unions to petition Kibaki over MPs' pay

Kenya trade unions and civil society groups are planning to petition President Kibaki to dissolve Parliament after the referendum on the Proposed Constitution.

They will be joined by professional bodies, students’ unions and youth organisations to support the President's move if the MPs decline to pass the Finance Bill.

The MPs are planning to reject crucial Bills - Finance and Appropriations - which allows the government to impose new taxation measures outlined in the budget and distribute money to various ministries and departments respectively.

Watchdog role

In a join news conference Wednesday, the union bosses said the 10th Parliament had abdicated its watchdog role and was pushing its own vested interests.

“They should go home and look for alternative jobs that pay better if they are so unhappy with what they are already earning,” Mr George Muchai of the Central Organisation of Trade Union said at International Life House, Nairobi.

He spoke on behalf the Kenya National Union of Teachers, Union of Kenya Civil Servants, National Nurses Association of Kenya and the Multi-sectoral Forum that represents all civil societies.

“If they are so unhappy with their package, let them resign,” he said, adding that being in Parliament ought to be a service not a job.

“They were expected to be guardian angels of the poor and the supervisors of the rich,” Mr Muchai said, “but they have turned to be predators of the poor and the protectors of the rich".

The unionists said Parliament would like Kenyans to assume that the tribunal was independent, something they claim “is neither true or possible".

Block Bills

They said the tribunal was appointed by the Parliamentary Service Commission as an agent of, or a consultant for, the House.

“Its outputs therefore are no more than recommendations made to an employer by an employee who seeks to gratify the employer’s ego.”

MPs have threatened to block the passage of the Bills until their pay raise is effected by Treasury.

They want Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta to table four bills that will legalise their move to award themselves a huge pay increase that will see an MP earn Sh1.09m up from the current Sh851,000 monthly salary.

Mr Kenyatta has, however, indicated that he will not give in to the legislators' demands saying the increment was not factored in the 2010/2011 Budget and doing so would lead to a spiral of wage demands from other sectors.

Teachers, nurses and other public servants have also demanded better remuneration. The police were given a modest pay raise recently ending months of protracted negotiations with the government.