Members of Parliament are set to pocket about $30 000 each as Government pays their outstanding allowances.
In an interview with The Herald yesterday, Clerk of Parliament, Kennedy Chokuda confirmed the development saying they had gone a long way in clearing their indebtedness to MPs. Said Chokuda:
We have already paid MPs up to March. Right now MPs are getting their outstanding allowances. In fact we have paid the bulk of what we owe them. What now remains is payment of the last five months that is from March to July. We expect the money to be released in the next few days because we have submitted bids. As we speak MPs are getting their allowances in respect of the previous period. The balance for March up to July we will pay them before the month comes to an end.
He could not however say how much in total they received or how much each MP got in the last batch and what an individual legislator would get for the remaining months. An MP who spoke on condition of anonymity said on average they were getting between $20 000 to $30 000. Said the MP:
I got about $7 000 because I came through a by-election recently and you can imagine what other colleagues who have been there for the past five years are getting. It is in the region of between $20 000 to $30 000.
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