Former MPs to take home Sh1 million

By Beauttah Omanga
The Cabinet approved ex gratia payment to 46 former MPs who were left out in the previous one-off retirement benefit.
The MPs, who served from 1963 to 1983, are set to receive Sh1 million each for the period they served. In 2009, Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta announced that each MP was to get Sh1 million, which majority of former MPs have been paid.
The remaining 46 were left out in unclear circumstances as the rest of the 464 MPs were paid. In a gazette notice dated April 17, 2009, Uhuru said the payments to the former legislators who include veteran politicians Martin Shikuku and George Nthenge, are to be exempted from income tax so long as "they did not make it back to the National Assembly or if they did, didn’t buy back either period of reckonable service."
Yesterday a former MP Wanyiri Kihoro welcomed the Cabinet decision but cautioned that it should not be used as a gateway by Parliament to approve a gratuity of Sh3 million MPs have already proposed.
Acquisition of land
He expressed concern that already legislators who served in the last Parliament received gratuity of Sh1.5 million, creating leeway for the current Parliament to also increase and approve theirs.
Kihoro, who is the Former Parliamentarians Association secretary and served between 1997 and 2002, however, described the amount as small compared to former MPs length of service and a salary of Sh6,000 then.
Under the chairmanship of President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the Cabinet also approved the acquisition of land for the resettlement of persons affected by the development of Thiba Dam, which is aimed at expanding the Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
The Cabinet resolved that 550 acres will be hived off from the Mwea Prison land, AHITI Ndomba and Sagana Town Council land.
The Cabinet, however, deferred a decision on the acquisition of more land from the Wamumu Approved School. The Thiba Dam-Mwea irrigation project is being funded by the governments of Kenya and Japan to the tune of Sh12 billion.
Yesterday’s meeting at State House, Nairobi, also approved conversion of the Kenya Postal Savings Bank to a limited liability company and subsidiary of the Postal Corporation of Kenya to be licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya under the Banking Act.
"In order to effect this arrangement the Government has agreed to transfer 44 per cent of its ownership in the Kenya Post Office Savings Bank to the Postal Corporation of Kenya," read a statement from the PPS.
At the same time the Cabinet, approved the secondment of 80 Kenyan civil servants to the Government of South Sudan, under the Igad Initiative project, partly funded by UNDP.
Kenya will also increase technical co-operation programme to South Sudan from $3.5 million to $5 million over a three-year period.