{"id":335456,"date":"2017-07-11T07:30:50","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T07:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=335456"},"modified":"2017-07-11T07:30:50","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T07:30:50","slug":"kenyan-mps-to-get-15-pay-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=335456","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan MPs to get 15% pay cut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Kenyan MPs, who are some of the best paid lawmakers in the world, are to get a pay cut intended to reduce the public wage bill.<\/p>\n<p>The MPs&#8217; $7,200 (\u00a35,500) monthly pay will be cut by 15% and they will lose some generous allowances.<\/p>\n<p>The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) said that the salary review was part of a plan to reduce Kenya&#8217;s public sector wages by 35%.<\/p>\n<p>The average income in Kenya is $150 a month.<\/p>\n<p>The new salaries will be effective after the 8 August election.<\/p>\n<p>Africa Live: More on this and other stories<\/p>\n<p>The review will affect pay and allowances of national and county government officials, including the president, whose gross salary has been reduced from $16,000 to $14,000.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">MPs&#8217; current benefits:<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Personal car loan up to $67,400 &#8211; repayable at 3% interest<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">An official car grant of $48,000 per 5-year term<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Mileage (or business class travel by air or rail in lieu) and car maintenance of $3,440 monthly<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Mortgage $190,000<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Salary $7,200<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>Figures from Africa Check and media reports<\/i><\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\" \/>\n<p>The lawmakers blocked previous attempts to tax and\/or cap their pay, saying that their constituents depended on the MPs to help them financially.<\/p>\n<p>The review reduces their salaries to $6,100 and scraps some of their allowances.<\/p>\n<p>SRC boss Sarah Serem said the abolition of mileage and sitting allowances, which are favoured by the MPs, &#8220;were prone to abuse&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of mileage allowances, the SRC has created zones for which state officers will get a one-month allowance, the\u00a0Daily Nation reports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There were claims of up to Sh2 million ($20,000) per month,&#8221; Ms Serem said of the abuse of mileage allowance, the report adds.<\/p>\n<p>SRC said the salaries were set after comparing them with countries within the East African Community, South Africa, India, Canada and the US.<\/p>\n<p>It says it also considered the country&#8217;s GDP before setting the salaries.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Serem said that despite the reduction, the MPs will still remain some of the best paid legislators in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The salary review is also meant to harmonise the pay structure of other workers in the 700,000 strong public sector.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenyan MPs, who are some of the best paid lawmakers in the world, are to get a pay cut intended to reduce the public wage bill. The MPs&#8217; $7,200 (\u00a35,500) monthly pay will be cut by 15% and they will lose some generous allowances. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) said that the salary review [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[9106,9107],"class_list":["post-335456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-kenya-mp-salary","tag-kenya-mps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=335456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=335456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=335456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=335456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}