Broke Kenyan Parliament now summons Treasury chief

NAIROBI: Parliament has been hit by a serious cash crunch, to an extent that expenses and other allowances for the 349 MPs are not being processed. MPs are unable to pay their constituency staff and they are already complaining of being broke, just five days after they were paid.

So grim is the situation that Kenya Power (KP) disconnected power at the main Parliament Buildings on Friday over contested bills and electricity was restored Monday afternoon after high-level intervention.

Monday, National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, who is also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), held crisis talks with the Treasury to resolve the financial problems.

The MPs have put the accountants at Parliament on the edge because they are tired of the terse response whenever they make claims that there's no money. The fury of the lawmakers Monday made the managers of the bicameral Parliament call an urgent meeting with the Treasury to agree on how the billions of shillings earmarked for the august House in the current financial year will be disbursed.

PSC, which is tasked with handling the pay issues of MPs both in the Senate and the National Assembly, has been under siege from staff and even MPs on why there was a delay in the payment of salaries and allowances, including a marked delay in the processing of mileage claims. The MPs are under pressure from their constituency staff, many of whom have not been paid since the beginning of the current financial year on July 1 this year.

The Speaker confirmed to The Standard that the meeting with the Treasury was held late Monday to deal with the trickle in the Exchequer releases – the public funds as issued to different State organs and Government departments to cater for their budgets.

"Yes, we are meeting," the Speaker told The Standard. He also responded "Yes" to our inquiry about the agenda of the meeting being to do with the cash crunch.

The PSC deals with all matters regarding the general administration within the august House. In the current financial year, PSC has a budget of Sh28.28 billion, with nearly one-third of the amount going to cater for the MPs' hefty perks and salaries.

Eldas MP Adan Keynan, who sits in PSC and chairs the commission's sub committee on staff welfare, told The Standard the pay to some of the key staff had delayed and had made it difficult for the MPs to operate.

"I can confirm to you that since July 1, we have not paid the salaries of our constituency staff. This is very serious. You can imagine when KP disconnects electricity to Parliament. Do you know how big a security risk that poses to the institution?" Keynan asked.

"Nearly all the projects have stalled. If it continues like this, the work of parliamentarians is likely to be affected," said Keynan.

Insiders told The Standard that KP contested that Parliament had cleared the bill. "We paid the bill on Friday and we hope to reconcile the accounts so that we are on the same page," National Assembly Senior Deputy Clerk Michael Sialai told The Standard.