Moi-era MPs to pocket 100k monthly as Sh2.9b pension plan is backed
A parliamentary committee has backed a proposal to have 370 former MPs who served between 1984 and 2002 given a Sh100,000-a-month pension backdated to July 2010.
At the outset, that plan could cost at least Sh2.9 billion for payments of 37 million for the 79 months that have elapsed between now and July 2010.
The Finance, Trade and Planning Committee gave its backing by deeming acceptable the former MPs’ proposal contained in a petition submitted to Parliament by Rarieda MP Nicolas Gumbo on their behalf.
That lot is currently paid a pension of between Sh2,700 and Sh14,000 per month. This is because MPs decided in 2003 to increase their salaries, their salaries were low as they were determined by Treasury.
“These low pensions are a clear mismatch of the current economic realities,” the Finance Committee said in the report tabled in the National Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.
ABJECT POVERTY
Mr Gumbo and other MPs have argued that the former lawmakers live in abject poverty, which is bad as they are deemed the face of Parliament.
A tribunal headed by retired judge Akilano Akiwumi had in 2009 recommended that former MPs receive $1,000 a month as “living and minimum monthly pension”.
Parliament debated and adopted the Akiwumi report on June 230, 2010, thus the decision to have the pension plan implemented from July 1 that year.
To put this into effect, MPs will have to amend the Parliamentary Pensions Act. That was also the condition set by the court after the former MPs filed a case in court over the same matter.
The Finance Committee said the allocations for the former MPs should be included in the Budget for the next financial year – 2017/18.
Sh2.9 billion can pay for the leasing of medical equipment for 24 counties for the next financial year and equivalent and is more than enough to fund the rehabilitation of youth polytechnics in the Budget.
