Mbogwe MP (CCM), Nicodamus Maganga urged his colleagues in Parliament to be ‘honest’ about their pay. He referenced other parliaments saying MPs there were paid in (United States of America) dollars, unlike here where the payment package of MPs is ‘not enough’. He went on to claim that the public is misled in believing that MPs have a lot of money, and that he was unaware that the pay package was not enough before he joined Parliament. He also sent a message to voters that their MPs were on their way home after the budget session ends but voters should not expect their MPs to have any money.
In a separate interview with a local online TV, he was adamant and reiterated his stance on their ‘poor pay’. He told the journalist that an MP is expected to cover a lot of costs in his or her constituency from weddings, to children of voters who are going to school or colleges to paying for their hospital fees and condolences. He argued that in some days, the MP spends more than they earn, leading them to incur expenses from other sources of their incomes.
Other MPs have previously disclosed varying amounts of their pay packages which has been anything between Sh11 million to Sh13 million and some change per month. Bottom line, he wants a pay rise.
Needless to say, Mr Maganga’s comments elicited anger online where some argued that if MPs are poorly paid what should civil servants say, especially teachers. To others they led to what one journalist (May The Good Lord keep him well) in his legendary column referred to a situation like this one as something which would make you laugh with pain or anger. There was dark humour too. In the interview with the online TV he dismissed any comparisons made between a teacher or a doctor and an MP, saying that an MP is a ‘people’s person’, he or she should be seen and that there are costs to maintaining the dignity or status of being an MP.
While his argument is not new, and even the reasons he gave have been with us for as long as multipartism returned to Tanzania, the way he advanced his argument in including payments with dollars is particularly troublesome. With a local currency that barely makes any gains against the US dollar or sustains any gains made, a call for them to be paid in a foreign currency undermines confidence in the local currency. It is problematic too that he said nothing of the economies of these other countries.
The transactional relationship between elected officials like MPs and their voters was a product of allowing an ‘entrepreneurial’ spirit to MPs or those competing to become one. It starts long before they are elected to parliament. In his interview with the online TV, Mr Maganga claimed that many MPs do not reside in their constituencies to avoid these transactions.
He further claimed that because his voters ‘love’ him, he spent ‘only’ seventy three million as election expenses but said there were other MPs who had spent six hundred millions as election expenses on their way to Parliament.
Voters have no way of holding accountable their MP except waiting for five years or when there is a by-election for whatever reason. In this reality, where MPs regardless of whether they are doing their jobs or not, whether they are speaking on behalf of the people who voted them into office or not, each side milk the other for all its worth when they can still do it.
MPs demand a pay rise regardless of what they have actually done. Some MPs are elected to Parliament and finish an entire political term virtually unknown and unheard.
Mr Maganga claims that the pay rise is necessitated by the people’s endless demands to their MPs. This is another troublesome issue. How much should our MPs be given to satisfy the insatiable hunger, the insatiable demands of their voters? What amount would be enough to meet these demands? And why hide behind voters, while the relationship is transactional anyway?
There is another matter here which is the real cause of all this talk of pay rise. Once MPs are elected, the fight to keep their seats does not end with them being elected.
No constituency is ever safe from other competitors who will do anything to replace the incumbent. Effectively, taxpayers are being asked to bankroll their MPs’ efforts to stay in office.
More often than not, voters are dealt a terrible hand. Democracy is expensive, they say.
It is, in so many ways.