BILL 7 CRIPPLING EXPENSES
BILL SEVEN CRIPPLING EXPENSES
Minister of Information Cornelius Mweetwa is denying or distorting reality when he makes the claim that the infamous and discredited Bill 7 will bring in savings of about three hundred million Kwacha as most by-elections would be done away with.
This is classic gaslighting by the UPND as the opposite is actually the case. Bill 7 will run up billions of Kwacha in extra costs.
The provision which talk of increasing constituencies with the addition of fifty five new ones to be topped up with a further thirty nominated members of parliament is not a cheap exercise.
On average Parliamentary Committees have ten to twelve members. With these over eighty five new members of Parliament; the committees with average twenty to twenty two members each. This means the committee costs will double.
Some of the costs of the committees relate to;
Their sittings in Lusaka
Countrywide tours transportation, lodging and allowances
Each committee on average has at least one foreign trip outside the country with airfares, hotel lodging etc in dollars.
Foreign travel sitting allowances in dollars
These costs will double because of Bill 7.
Each Member of Parliament has a Constituency Office. This means at least fifty five more Constituency Offices will have to be built. The Constituency office electricity, water and security bills are also paid.
Each Constituency office has members of staff to run them. More expense created by Bill Seven.
Extra housing will have to be found and paid for the extra MPs created by Bill 7 when the house is sitting. Parliament Motel does not have enough rooms to cater for this increase.
During sittings the cost of tea breaks will double due to the extra members of Parliament.
During sittings the cost of breakfast, lunch and supper will double due to the extra members of Parliament.
Each Member of Parliament has;
a monthly salary of ZMW20,237.75 each (which comes to ZMW242,853 each yearly.)
A Constituency allowance (even for the nominated members of Parliament)
Fuel allowance
Car allowance
Special utility allowance
Daily sitting allowances in the House
Daily sitting allowances for Committee sittings
Duty free vehicle (not a Vitz but a high end four wheel drive)
Mid term gratuity
End of term gratuity
Just the cost of the gratuities for the eighty five proposed new MPs will eclipse the three hundred million saving that Information Minister is claiming.
Another cost which is very large for the maintenance of Members of Parliament is the medical bills. Quite often parliamentarians are sent out to South Africa or India for medical treatment. This is no doubt costly.
Bill 7 will create many more MPs who will be amongst those who will have to get medical treatment abroad as we do not have sufficient numbers of resident doctors. The number of available doctors will actually fall further as government says it does not have enough money to pay them.
What is saddening is that whilst pushing for these billions of Kwacha of new expenses arising from Bill 7, the Minister of Health has revealed that we do not have sufficient resources as a country to pay our resident doctors.
The cost attached to each new Member of Parliament could easily cater for at least forty resident doctors salaries meaning that we could easily pay and employ almost 3,500 resident doctors.
As the United Opposition we are calling upon the government to priotorise the health of the nation over the rejected Bill 7 and start paying resident doctors and employing more of them.
This are but a few, and certainly not all, of the Bill Seven crippling expenses.
