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{
    "id": 1506306,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1506306/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 77,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "world out there. It is different for us public officers because the taxpayer will have to pay the money. Therefore, I would not have agreed to that if it were in the Bill. I discovered it is not there when I perused the Bill. It is good to make that clear so that people out there do not misconstrue the intentions of this Bill. When the public hears anything parliamentary, it imagines contributing more money or Members of Parliament are getting more money, especially now when you talk about the Parliamentary Pension Scheme. I was checking my last pay slip. I discovered I contribute Ksh59,328.50 to the Parliamentary Pension Scheme every single month. The money is deducted from my salary over and above National Social Security Fund (NSSF) contributions. The misconception is that we pass laws that do not affect us here. However, we pass laws that also affect us because we know better. We know you will need to be taken care of beyond the term of active service. Today, millions of our elderly people above the age of 65 are under cash transfer programmes, including former Members of Parliament. Hon. Oundo has said there are those that we see around here. There are many others who are benefiting from the Ksh2,500 of the cash transfer programme. They would not need to go back to public coffers to get cash transfers if they had a good pension scheme. That is even the essence of NSSF enhancing contributions. We have a society where everybody is dependent on public coffers because people worked for 30 years contributing Ksh200 a month. You will save only Ksh144,000 at the end of your 30 years of service. If you are given the Ksh144,000 at the end of your active service at the age of 60 or 55, you will wipe it out within a few months yet you are getting a pension of about Ksh2,000 or Ksh3,000 only. That amount of money cannot even take care of your medical expenses. Therefore, just for the record, this Bill is coming at a very good time. Secondly, the members of the Fourth Estate will misreport tomorrow in the newspapers. We will see headlines like, 'Members of Parliament Increase their Pension' or 'Members of Parliament Increase their Pay', yet this is money we contribute from what we are already being paid. As the Mover said, this Bill aligns with the 2010 Constitution, especially in roping in the issues of widows and widowers that were discussed in the Senate. I do not know whether it is the law that did not envisage that there will be widowers, or female Members of Parliament. I do not know whether it also never envisaged there will be Members of Parliament who are single ladies, divorced, or separated from their husbands. It is good to encourage such men and women who are divorced or separated from their spouses to designate somebody. I am not naming Members, but I am sure somebody is listening to me. You can designate even a colleague to take care of your children when you are not there. I encourage all of us to continue contributing."
}