By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Saturday, November 26 2011 at 22:30
Posted Saturday, November 26 2011 at 22:30
Legislators sitting on various ad hoc investigative committees in the House are raking in cash from the Exchequer in the form of sitting and travelling allowances.
Some lawmakers are earning hundreds of thousands of shillings to discuss and look into all manner of issues affecting the country, including the cost of living and depreciation of the shilling.
A fortnight ago, for instance, Chris Okemo, the chairman of the departmental committee on Finance, lobbied for the inclusion of some members of his standing committee on an ad hoc committee to look into the depreciation of the Kenya shilling. Mr Okemo’s regular committee was already looking into the matter.
“I think it would be useful to the select committee if we are included so that it will enrich and not duplicate what we have done,” he told the House.
To avoid duplication, it would have been prudent to ask Mr Adan Keynan, who was pushing for the formation of the new committee, to stand down.
But Mr Okemo led three of his committee members onto the team to make it a 19-member affair.
“Why would Parliament want to form another committee to do the same work which is already being done by the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade? I think we are doing double work, which is not right,” Joint Government Whip Jakoyo Midiwo, who is a member of the Finance committee, said a week earlier. Then he was included on the ad hoc committee.
This came a week after another committee on the cost of living had wound up its sittings and addressed that very matter –– and it raised more questions.
In addition to the committees looking into the cost of living and the depreciation of the shilling, there have been ad hoc committees on IDPs and cattle rustling.
According to the National Assembly and Remuneration Act, an MP earns Sh5,000 every time he or she shows up for the House or a committee sitting.
Attending committee sittings every morning and afternoon five days a week will earn the lawmaker Sh50,000. The chairman pockets Sh8,000 for every sitting.
If the House is in session, and an MP attends the plenary sittings, then that MP earns another Sh20,000 per week.
So, if committee meetings are held from Monday to Friday, like the way the Mutava Musyimi-led joint committee inquiring into the demolitions did last week, each member will pocket a minimum of Sh70,000.
At the end of the three weeks within which the committee has to complete its duty, the MPs who attend all the sittings will have earned Sh210,000 each.
The Standing Orders define a “sitting” as the “period during which the House is sitting continuously without adjournment and includes any period during which the House is in Committee.”
One does not have to sit through the whole session to qualify for payment. It is not uncommon to see an MP rushing into the House five minutes to the end of the evening session at 6.30 pm just to have his name on the attendance list.
Others barely spend half an hour in the chambers, while others just come in, greet colleagues and walk out.
Similarly, it is not unusual to see MPs – especially those who sit on three or more committees – pop in and out of all the three committee meetings if all of them are being held simultaneously.
In addition to these allowances, the money set aside for personal allowances for MPs – those paid as part of salary like house, travel, car maintenance, plus the allowances paid in reimbursements (mileage) and those in kind – amounts to Sh1.8 billion.
The gravy train pulls in with an additional Sh529 million for domestic and foreign travel.
Committees of the House have an allocation of Sh330 million in the current budget for domestic and foreign travel, plus for hospitality – the tea, scones, mandazi and bottles of water that are served during the committee sittings.
House Speaker Kenneth Marende, in the latest annual report of the Parliamentary Service Commission, noted that the commission will do all it can to help MPs execute their constitutional functions of oversight, representation and legislation.
Last year, the House approved the new Constitution, approved 12 bills, debated 117 motions and carried out investigations into multi-billion-shilling scandals in the Executive. This year, MPs have so far approved 29 pieces of legislation, all of which have been enacted.
Other committees have taken trips to Germany, Spain, the US, Britain, Israel, Japan, China, Burkina Faso, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa.Lawmakers also took trips to foreign countries to learn how things work. When they were on recess in September, members of the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee took a trip to Brazil to see how devolution works there.
The point of the trips –– sometimes called “study tours” –– is for the MPs to mingle with their colleagues in the rest of the world and get tips on the best practices and bring home that knowledge to improve things in Kenya.
Immigration requirements
Locally, MPs travel to every part of the country. The National Security Committee toured Malindi, Mombasa and Nairobi airports as they carried out their inquiry on safety and immigration requirements.
The team on Finance went to the port of Mombasa in 2009 to see how grain was imported and handled.
The Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations has been to Isiolo and Lanet to learn about military procurement and the arbitrary variation of contracts. It also went to Japan to look into the scandal in the procurement of the embassy land.
MPs travel business class. They are also entitled to first class travel if they choose to go anywhere by rail.
They are similarly paid mileage claims at the rate of Sh92 per kilometre as a top-up to the mileage allowance, for those who drive more than 750 kilometres to their constituencies.
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