Category Archives: Kenya parliament

End of Parliament

The 9th Parliament is over, paving the way for general elections to be held in December 2007.

NTV Reporter Robert Nagila had a nice piece on NTV last week about the 222 vacancies in Parliament – terming them among the best jobs in Kenya. [A member of parliament gets 5 years security of tenure (while no CEO job is safe when profits fall), and millionaire status guaranteed from an annual salary of about 10 million shillings ($142,000) a year – higher than most developed countries]

Professionals of all sorts are lining up to win the seats this year – including one constituency with over 40 candidates.

Looking back over the five years past, this parliament was doomed in the public mind when upon entering the house they immediately raised (almost doubling) their salaries. And as much as they blame the media for carping on each and every salary increase, it struck a nerve with many poor Kenyans.

So, long before the government got its act together to tackle civil servants, teacher and police and other workers salaries, MP’s had already taken care of their welfare, and continued to do so as a ritual.

And for the good work they did on passing procurement and sexual offences bill, conducting a credible investigation on Anglo leasing, and constituency development funds, and 60 other bills those were overshadowed by the inter-party bickering, lack of quorum (even during passage of some said bills) and needless salary hikes. It has been estimated than over ½ of them will not make it back to parliament in 2008, and for that we hope to have a more sensible crop of leaders.

What worries me is that all the MP’s I have personally met are sensible, smart people who are professional with degrees, but when they enter the parliament a herd mentality seems to take over and you see the same people on TV spewing childish taunts and obscenities at their opponents and perceived enemies.

For more read the light and the intrigues of parliament

Other Pro’s
– high self awareness
– Can lump even more personal bills onto the tax payer by accepting a useless assistant minister’s post.
– You get to sign a whole page in any visitors/condolence book (instead of one line)
– Can use the prefix “Honorable ___ ” long after you leave parliament
– groupies

Some drawbacks
– Getting there is expensive and dirty which scares away many decent people.
– Vehicle to parliament is called a political parties which has no purpose these, but they have to be paid to secure a certificate.
– Low public esteem.
– But the public/constituents, still expect MP’s to fund them since they are multi-millionaires
– Stalkers

other opportunities
most from the weekend papers

Acumen Fund Fellows: New York, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, India, Pakistan, D/L is 24/10

Barclays Africa Leadership Program

IFC investment officer, infrastructure advisory. D/L 2/11

Managing Director at KCB Uganda . Apply to recruitement@kcb.co.ke by 5/11

Business writers at Nation media group. Apply to hrrecruit@nation.co.ke by 30/10

Associate editor – business at the <Standard
Other management vacancies (several each) include Kenya Airways, National Bank, National Oil Corp of Kenya, Safaricom and the Kenya ICT Board (but no web site)?

Kenya petroleum refineries (14) trainee refinery operators apply by snail mail

Election year inflation

The elections are a few weeks away and assets are disposed of and savings converted into consumer spending and other election-related services. People are being warned to be careful with their SUV’s (lest they are stolen to be used in rural campaigns and dumped)

There are 210 constituencies in the country and one estimate of the cost of running a viable campaign is set at about 10 million shillings ($150,000) – and this can be as high as 100 million shillings (where titans are battling it out to enter Parliament)

Scenes from the Nairobi show
Also known as the Nairobi international trade fair (which ended on Sunday October 7)
– Traffic to the showground was so bad along Ngong road, that it was better and faster to detour along Kibera. I asked one very tired policeman about this and he replied that the heavy traffic was not related to the trade fair – just that vehicles never cease coming no matter how long directs the traffic (too many cars)
– Visiting an impressive stand, I’m reminded that long before Vice President Moody Awori spruced up the Prisons Department, it was highly regarded for the good quality furniture that they i.e. prisoners used to (and still) produce and which the department would sell to the public
– A yellow Humvee is a big draw for all the school kids even though they are not allowed near it
– I was able to get my social security statement from the NSSF stand, but my stockbroker could not give me a statement! (They were not online). The NSSF also gave a friendly reminder to patrons to top up their contributions otherwise they would receive very little when they retired
– Ice cream vendors almost every 10 yards. And the way it was hot, they were all doing roaring business
– JKUAT (University) enterprises produce a variety of juices, jams, soaps and lotions.
– A drunk high school student being hauled out of the show grounds by his colleagues. I later passed them outside the showground and noticed they have wisely removed their school uniforms – otherwise they could have bundled into a police wagon to be paraded on the evening news.

The Press Filter

A glance at the weekend newspapers shows government departments putting up paid advertisements in the newspaper. These include the permanent secretary – Ministry of Finance setting the record straight on the country’s domestic debt position, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice on parliament’s recent amendment to curb powers of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission and even the government spokesman (who’s the equivalent of a permanent secretary) on thetribal balance of the government (through an ad placed in all papers including the Nairobi star)

Of course its’ not just the government that has trouble getting their ‘facts’ out before the media – the Kenya land alliance on the Land Bill, former MP Basil Criticos claiming the government ‘grabbed’ his sisal farm, the National Bank of Kenya defending the government in the Criticos land sale etc.

With four major TV stations and a dozen newspapers and radio stations, the amount of stories churned out by the media is endless. But with politics dominating most of the media channels during this election year, it is easy for important facts to be addressed by interested parties – and the only way they can be assured that their story will be transmitted verbatim – no editing, slanting, filtering, or even buried by the media – to the public is by paying for an advertisement themselves – at a cost of about 70,000 shillings (about $1,000)

However, there’s a flip side to this. A media story is supposed to be balanced – and by placing a statement in the papers, they are telling their side of the story without challenge, or argument – and without an opposing view, a paid up statement is just an advertisement.

Election briefs

– The Electoral Commission of Kenya has enabled registered voters to check on the status of their vote eligibility online – just by entering a nation ID number or voter’s card number.

– Botswana residents living in Kenya have been invited to register to vote at the country’s high commission in Nairobi this month. That’s something Kenyans in the Diaspora can pressure for their local embassies to do for them also in future.

(Poor) Defence of MP’s Salaries

In 2003, Transparency International – Kenya published a booklet (PDF here) as a result of a survey they had carried out on Kenyan parliamentarians and the burden of dealing with (paying for) constituents needs – mostly though giving funds

It’s useful to look back on it at a time when the same parliamentarians want to increase their salaries again (because they can and will) the survey consisted of 8th parliament – expenditure of 7 MP’s and questionnaire of about 20 others

The survey was done before Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and the last salary increase (2003) and found that;
– Of their (then) Kshs. 395,000 gross salary, MP’s typically took home less than 50,000
– 2/3 of those surveyed claimed to spend between 200,000 and 300,000 pr month of their salary i.e. ½ to 2/3 – and it’s interesting that for those who TI tracked, they projected that their expenses would exceed their salary & expected income (TI did not pursue this point)
– Reasons for giving funds: to get re-elected got 3X as many responses as to help people. Longevity in parliament is maintained by being generous to constituents
– Ominous point for Kenya, most – over 2/3 of elections are not closely contested i.e. the winner gets double the votes of the loser signifying the importance of being in the right party. This places the burden on party nominations (see ODM-K, NARC, NARC-K, Shirikisho, Ford K….) which are often not observed, and are less free & fair
– TI Kenya defended the MP’s – asking for them to get higher remuneration (to ease the stress and deficits brought on by their constituents requests) and also supported CDF (at that time was only a proposal) But the latter is self defeating because the more the public knows that MP’s have increased their salary, only makes them ask for more from MP’s.

Now today, MP’s have CDF, get funds to set up office in their constituencies, control funds for school bursaries, are off the hook from free primary education (and soon secondary), and have almost doubled their salary from before the survey.

But CDF also helps voters decipher useless MP’s who can no longer lie to them that the government was denying them resources to do A, B, C. CDF reduced ‘problem solving’ but not all since most MP’s giving to their constituents consists of individuals and harambees.

So MP’s will increase their salaries, because they have to – and can.

A day in Parliament

Cross Posted at Mzalendo