New offices to guzzle funds from public coffers

By Beauttah Omanga

As the country settles for the implementation of the new Constitution, hard realities are dawning on Kenyans.

Kenyans will have to dig deeper into their pockets to sustain about 2,500 political offices.

The new Constitution creates 2,441 offices for the political class to be paid from public coffers, just like the current 222 MPs are paid.

Some office holders will be paid more, as is the case with the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly.

Kenyans have previously complained about MPs hefty pay packs and their knack for increasing their salaries any time an opportunity presents itself.

The new Constitution gives the yet to be set up Remuneration Commission the mandate of setting new salary scales for political offices.

Those to be considered for the new salaries will include MPs, governors, senators, county representatives and chief officers in the national and county assemblies.

Besides the salaries, the country will have to pay for the maintenance, staff and operational costs of all political offices created in the new Constitution.

The only reprieve is that unlike the current MPs, all office bearers will be expected to pay taxes.

To start with, the country’s Chief Executive, the President, will have a deputy President replacing the office of the Vice-President.

Taking over

There will be 22 Secretaries taking over from current Cabinet ministers. Then there will be a Secretary to the Cabinet besides a new-look team of permanent secretaries, who are now known as principal secretaries.

In total, the new Constitution directs that we have a total of 349 MPs. Adding to the current 210 MPs elected from the same number of constituencies, we will have 80 new MPs to be elected from the yet to be created constituencies.

The Interim Independent Boundaries Review Commission (IIBRC) is working on modalities of demarcating new boundaries before they leave office in a month’s time.

The team led by Andrew Ligale found itself on the receiving end when Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo reminded them to prepare to close shop as their time was up.

The IIBRC is in a rush to beat time with fears increasing that they might not do a quality work given the little time left. Sources from the commission indicated that experts hired recently are yet to start touring the countryside to compile necessary details to be used to determine the new boundaries.

A member of the IIBRC Rozaa Buyu, however, insisted there was no cause for alarm, as things will be sorted out before the November 27 deadline.

"We are working over time to ensure we give Kenyans new constituencies before we leave. The recent debate about our tenure was failed attempts to divert our concentration," said Buyu.

Mr Mutula has advised the IIBRC team to stop where they are and let the yet to be formed electoral and boundaries review commission to complete the remaining work.

"I am not against anybody in that commission. I’m only advising them to start preparing to leave office and let another commission now officially recognised by law carry out the remaining task. We don’t want the IIBRC to rush and mess things," said the Justice Minister.

Whatever happens come 2012, Kenyans will definitely have the additional 80 MPs, whose salaries they will have to pay.

Besides the huge number of MPs, Kenyans will be electing 67 senators, 47 from the counties, and the rest to be filled by special interest groups.

The 47 senators will be elected directly by voters in General elections, while 16 women members will be nominated by political parties according to their proportion of members of the Senate.

Also to sit in the senate will be one man and a woman representing the youth and the same representing persons with disabilities.

Then there will be 47 governors directly elected by the electorate alongside a deputy governor.

The two positions will operate with executive powers, in a way as those enjoyed by a president in the country, only that this time it comes on a smaller scale.

The governors will have executive powers, including making major decisions related to issues within their territories.

Each county will have 30 assembly members, who will form the core legislative arm of the county.

In some cases, the assembly members will have powers to determine the tax rates to meet set financial targets.

There is also a provision that each county have an executive body comprising 10 members, who will be serving as a Cabinet of the county appointed by the Governor.

The county Speaker will be elected by county assembly from among persons who will not be members of the assembly.

In the absence of the Speaker, however, the members can appoint one of them to act.

Already, there is a debate on how the councillors’ numbering thousands will be accommodated in the new Constitution.