Members of Parliament Have a Right to Demand More Pay

 I actually support pay rise for members of parliament and my reasons are simple and straightforward. We have a populace that doesn't understand the role of members of parliament. Whenever the so called "waheshima" visit their constituencies people swam their homes demanding and requesting for a litany of favors. If the MP does not give those handouts they are labeled bad, ineffective, inefficient etc and ultimately this becomes the basis on which they are judged during elections. Two: we have made elections very expensive in this country such that, safe from few exceptions, candidates for members of parliament have to invest millions of shillings in the campaigns, funds of which they somehow have to find ways to recover hence high levels of corruption in parliament and indeed the clamor for high pay. Here is the thing: until we educate the members of the public to understand and appreciate that the roles of members of parliament are legislation, oversight and representation and until we make campaigns for elections cheaper, these people deserve very high pays. Unfortunately, the civil society which should help government to conduct proper and continuous civic education has been labeled evil and its sources of funding (largely foreign) significantly interfered with by the state which appears to be happy with uninformed populace for easy manipulation. We reap, what we sow. Let members of parliament demand high perks; they are justified under the circumstances.