Members of the National Assembly turned against the Executive stating that its expenditure should be checked to reduce the wage bill.
Thirdway Alliance party leader Ekuru Aukot, who is spearheading the Punguza Mzigo campaigns, was accused by the lawmakers of what they termed as being obsessed with reducing the number of MPs to cut the Government’s wage bill.
They maintained that reducing the MPs alone would not fix the problem, adding that addressing the matter required the country to deal with corruption and check expenditures of the Executive and the counties.
“Doubts have been raised whether doing away with the large number of MPs will reduce the country’s wage bill," Ndaragwa MP Jeremiah Kioni stated.
"Kenyans may just realise the perks of MPs and MCAs are not the real burden that needs to be addressed,” Kioni, who chairs the National Assembly's Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee added.
The committee also questioned the source of funding for the initiative after Mr Aukot revealed his team had visited 12 counties and would visit five more this week.
Aukot and his party maintained that Kenyans were over-represented adding that the country would save Ksh31.8 billion by slashing the number of lawmakers and that at least 615,000 registered voters were in support of the initiative.
The initiative by Aukot requires at least one million registered voters before it is taken for debate in the county assemblies.
“This proposal has come from the majority of Kenyans. It is also factual that Kenyans are 400 per cent overrepresented compared to other populous countries in the world,” Aukot stated.
"China has 1,200 representatives for a population of 1.4 billion while India, with a population of 1.3 billion, has 800 representatives," he added.
In Kenya, there are 67 senators, 349 MPs and 2,222 MCAs, making it 2,638 representatives against an estimated population of about 46 million.
