Members of Parliament are yet to receive their sitting and mileage allowances for the last two months in what could suggest Kenya’s National Treasury is broke.
Belgut MP Nelson Koech said from the beginning of the year, the National Treasury has been struggling to pay salaries and allowances for legislators and other parliamentary staff.
“It is an extremely dire situation. From the beginning of the year, it became clear that the National Treasury was struggling to pay salaries and allowances,” Belgut MP Nelson Koech said s quoted by Daily Nation.
The legislator further said Treasury CS Ukuru Yattani’s docket has not disbursed money for the National Government Constituency Development Fund, a situation he says will see the majority of poor but clever students who depend on bursaries drop out of school.
According to rates calculated by the Automotive Association, Members of Parliament are collectively paid a whooping Ksh 187 million in mileage allowance for a kilometer they travel by road to their respective constituencies.
A part from Ksh 5,000 each MP takes home for a session attended, those chairing various committees are further entitled to Ksh 10,000 for each committee they chair.
Earlier this month, the MP had threatened to paralyze budget representation by National Treasury CS over delayed disbursement of NG-CDF.
This comes barely a week after county bosses through Council of Governor’s chair Martin Wambora threatened to suspend county operations over lack of funds.
This saw Yattani promise to release at least Ksh 39 billion to counties by Friday last week, a pledge that has not been honored.
Appearing before the Budget and Appropriation Committee on Monday, June 21, CS Ekur Yattani said the implementation of the 2020/2021 budget continue to face challenges fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has slowed down the economic performance. Further increased demand for additional priority expenditure poses a challenge to the implementation of ongoing projects,” Yattani said.
