Councillors are set to receive Ksh2.6 billion from the Treasury at the beginning of next year's financial year.
The Treasury stated that 328 former Councillors who served for over 4 terms will be paid Ksh664, 000 each in a one-off payment.
They also added that 11,919 Councillors that served for less than 4 terms will also be paid Ksh200,000 each.
The Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani noted that the Councillors will have to wait until the beginning of the next financial year to receive the payment due to the harsh economic times.
MPs noted that it was not fair for the Councillors to wait another year to receive their compensation.
“The threshold is too high, because to server for four consecutive terms is meant to lock out as many Councillors as possible. And to imagine that they will have to wait for another one year to get Ksh200, 000 is in my view too little too late and doesn’t speak to any respect at all,” Kitui Senator Enock Wambua highlighted.
The Members of Parliament also wanted Yatani to bring a supplementary budget and cater for the Councillors as many are succumbing to old age and sickness.
The CS, however, noted that it would be impossible to make the adjustment in the current financial year.
“It’s quite easy to say that I bring a supplementary budget, but that won’t be realistic, we can’t give what we can’t afford, the decision by the court stopping charging of minimum tax has already caused a Ksh22 billion dent in our budget, in fact, we will have to revise most of our budgets,” Yatani noted.
Nairobi Senator Johnson Sakaja, the committee chair, pleaded with the Councillors to accept the offer even as the discussions continue.
Previously, on August 5, 2020, parliament passed an amendment law allowing retired MPs to get a Ksh100,000 monthly pension for life.
The amendment was set to apply only to the MPs who served between 1984 and 2001.
At least 290 MPs were set to benefit from the amendment, where about 130 of them were already deceased, so their dependants were entitled to about half of the monthly payment.
