NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyans expressed outrage Friday after members of parliament this week recommended giving themselves a $175,000 annual pay package, compensation decried as overly exorbitant in a country where farmworkers earn $40 a month.
The legislators’ compensation package includes pay for housing, entertainment expenses, transportation, a constituency allowance and an extraneous allowance. The politicians would even be paid for attending parliament meetings.
It outpaces what many European parliamentarians make and would pay as much as the U.S. Congress.
But Kenya’s economy can’t match those of the U.S. or Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Nairobi residents live in slums with no running water. In Kenya’s capital, the monthly minimum wage for laborers is $82.
Kenya’s legislators currently make about $126,000.
“They are so selfish. I could grab them by their necks and strangle them,” said Muthoni Njathi, 29, who works in a Nairobi restaurant where workers average about $125 a month.
“NOT WITH OUR TAX MONEY,” screamed the front page of Friday’s Daily Nation, Kenya’s leading newspaper.
