Members of County Assemblies spent over Ksh8.6 billion on lavish trips and sitting allowances in the year ending June 2019.
In a report released by the Controller of Budget (CoB) on Monday, September 30, spending by MCAs rose by 40.9% from the initial Sh6.1 billion they spent in 2018.
The Salaries and Remuneration Commissions (SRC) had abolished the MCAs allowances on July 2017 but the High Court reinstated the benefits in 2018.
This forced SRC to increase the legislator’s sitting allowances from Ksh80,000 to Ksh124,800 per month. Travelling allowances were also returned.
Justice George Odunga, while presiding over the case, faulted SRC for not studying the labour market before making the salaries review.
MCAs received a 52% increase in sitting allowances meaning the expenditure went up by Sh760 million from the Ksh1.4 billion they spent in 2018.
Travelling allowances went up by 28% totalling to a staggering Ksh5.2 billion for domestic travels. Foreign travels allowances, on the other hand, went up by 74.6%.
This meant MCAs spent Ksh1.2 billion up from the Ksh680 million they had spent in 2018 for what they famously referred to as benchmarking trips.
These figures meant that counties spent more than 21.7% of the total Ksh40.3 billion they collected from county revenues on travel.
The 2,234 MCAs averagely received a total of Ksh319,512 each in monthly sitting and travelling allowances. The amount added to their basic salary would total to over Ksh500,000 per MCA in gross earnings.
This comes even as a directive by acting Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani to cut the government expenditure was being sidestepped by MPs in a clever legislation.
“The cuts will be brutal and will be sustained,” Yatani noted as he went ahead to reveal that he expected the government budget to drop by 3.5% by 2023.
