Gov’t Rejects Proposal to have Former MPs’ Get Sh100,000 Monthly Lifetime Pay

A proposal by Parliament to have former MPs who served between 1984 and 2001 get a lump sum payment of Sh2.7 billion and a monthly lifetime pay of not less than Sh100,000 has been rejected by Treasury.

The government termed the move illegal since Parliament failed to consult Treasury on the Bill proposing the payment as required by Section 114 of the Constitution, Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale said.

The section requires Parliament to get the views of the Treasury before debating any Bill that concerns taxation or government spending.

Duale said Treasury was not consulted in the Bill sponsored by Minority Leader John Mbadi and which received the backing of Finance and National Planning Committee last week.

“I will be moving a motion to withdraw the Bill. This is because the committee did not take into account the Treasury’s views in approving the privately sponsored Bill,” Duale said as quoted by Business Daily.

“This is a money Bill that has financial implications on the government," Duale added.

The Bill proposes that the pension entitlement for about 290 former MPs is raised to at least Sh100,000 per month for life, up from the current average of Sh33,000.

It also wants 80 other former MPs who had been excluded from pension be entitled to the payout, placing them at par with MPs who served after 2002 and who pocket a minimum of Sh120, 000 monthly.

The payment would have been backdated to January 2010, meaning the former MPs would have received a lump sum of Sh6 million each, being Sh100,000 monthly for 119 months to date.

"This is a lot of public money and the Treasury’s views should have been taken into account by the Finance committee, which it didn’t. I will be moving a motion that the Bill be stood down," Duale said.