Idle hands
According to the Economist,
Some 30 junior ministers in Kenya wrote to President Mwai Kibaki complaining that they have nothing to do. They cost the state $9m a year in salaries and allowances; “I just go to the office and read newspapers,” carped Abu Chiaba, assistant fisheries minister.Aside from the piscine pun and the notion of a politician complaining about not having enough work, what struck me was the money. Divide the $9 million (that’s US dollars) by 30 and you get an average salary of $US300,000 – and that’s for the junior ministers. What must the senior ones get? And President Kibaki?
Ordinary MPs get $60,000 a year, the official minimum wage is about $700 a year and GDP per head is about $1500. Then there are the very poor who live on less than $1 a day.
If I were a junior minister in the Kenyan government, I think I’d just shut up.
posted by Stephen Stratford at 2:54 PM
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