Following a High Court order that lifted a ban on car grants for MPs, over 300 legislators out of the 416 have already applied for the free cars.
The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in July capped MPs’ salaries as well as allowances.
In a gazette notice, SRC scrapped car grants, other allowances and reduced the salaries for all public servants; a move that drew wide spread criticism and pushed the legislators to the court to seek redress on the matter.
High Court judge George Odunga issued the order on December 15.
The Parliamentary Service Commission now says the application for car grants will continue dripping in from almost every MP by January.
“We continue to receive more forms and our projection is that each member would have submitted their application before the end of January,” a senior PSC member told the Star.
The grant amounts to Sh5 million for each MP. With a window period between now and when the case will be heard and determined, the legislators are not taking anything to chance; they are busy preparing their purchase documents for the luxurious cars.
Pressure is now on PSC to process their application for the grant before the case is heard at the end of January.
The applicants are required to furnish PSC with invoices and other purchase documents for the car before the money is wired to their accounts starting January.
Those without the documents will be required to provide them within three months after the money is wired in their accounts.
PSC argued in court that facilitating grants to MPs for the cars was a cheaper alternative compared to providing and maintaining official cars for the legislators given some of them cover rugged terrains quite often which raises their maintenance cost.
The renewed push is believed to be fuelled by a daunting and draining campaigning season that has left majority of the legislators hard up.
The legislators car grant scheme will gobble up about Sh2 billion. The treasury and the Auditor general have warned against this citing it is likely to push the wage bill further.
This means that with a projected Kenyan population of about 49 million people, each Kenyan will fork out Sh44 to fund the grant.