African press review 3 June 2013

MPs' salaries are still making front page news in Kenya.

According to the main story in this morning's Nairobi-based Standard newspaper, the swearing-in of members of the Parliamentary Service Commission later today is set to bring the raging controversy over salaries of Members of Parliament to a dramatic head.

The commission, which is headed by National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, must decide whether to sign off a monthly salary of 4,700 euros for each MP or to pay the 7,600 euros demanded by MPs. If the commission agrees to pay the higher rate, says The Standard, this will set off a constitutional battle in the courts.

It might also set off riots in the streets, since the average Kenyan takes seven years to earn what an MP gets every four weeks. But that's a different story.

The lower figure was set by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission on March 2 as part of a general downward review of public wages affecting senior government figures.

But MPs, elected two days after the order, have objected strongly and made it the first business of the House to censure the SRC chairperson Sarah Serem while attempting to dissolve the commission and overturn its review of House pay.

Members of both the National Assembly and the Senate have gone without pay for the past three months in anticipation of an upward adjustment, but this now seems to hang in the balance says the Standard.

The main story in the Daily Nation says activists will on Tuesday hold demonstrations to protest against the MPs’ moves to increase their salaries.

The “Occupy Parliament Reloaded” demonstration is meant to put more pressure on MPs to rescind their move, National Civil Society Congress president Maurice Odhiambo told journalists yesterday.

Odhiambo also accused National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi of lying to Kenyans when he said that Section 26 of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission Act made it mandatory for that commission to table its recommendations before the House.

Back to the Standard for the heart-warming story of a mother of six who dropped out of school 11 years ago because she couldn't pay the fees, but who has now re-started school.

Her name is Damaclin Kipngok, she's 28, and she enrolled last year at Sagasagik Day Secondary School in Baringo County, to the amusement of her neighbours and the bewilderment of her own children.

Damaclin is top of her class in all subjects, despite the demands of her large family. The schoolgirl-cum-mother has become the talking point of her neighbours in Sagasagik village who see her every morning escorting her children to the local Primary School before she proceeds to her own school.

She dreams of one day becoming a teacher.

The main headline on the news analysis pages of today's South African financial paper, BusinessDay, is a real eyecatcher. It reads, and I kid you not, "Call for a thorough chicken inquiry." Which sounds mildly amusing, until you read the small print.

There, we learn that more than 2.5 million chickens are eaten every day in South Africa, making it the main animal protein consumed, particularly for low-income customers.

Poor households, which spend between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of their income on food, are under increasing pressure because of rising inflation in the price of foods, one of the main drivers of labour unrest and demands for above-inflation wage increases.

Yet the government seems hell-bent on helping local producers by boosting import tariffs significantly from the current 23 per cent, which is already a cushy pillow, given that most such products contain between 30 and 56 per cent brine, says BusinessDay.

Imported chicken typically contains less brine because of much stricter regulations in the countries of origin.

South African producers say imports are booming because of unfair prices, and higher returns are needed to ensure the local industry’s survival. They also say they cannot compete with imports from Brazil and the US because of higher feed costs and a higher transport component in South Africa.

If the producers get their way, says BusinessDay, consumer prices could rise by anything from 10 to 50%, depending on whether you believe the importers or the local chicken producers.

The Association of Meat Importers and Exporters wants to commission a market inquiry to cover the entire chicken industry “from breeder to plate”, rather than rely on another hatchet job.

BusinessDay also reports that Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court has backed President Robert Mugabe’s call for swift elections by ordering them to be held before 31 July, earlier than the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, wants.

President Mugabe will seek regional endorsement for early polls later this week at a summit in Maputo of the Southern African Development Community, a body which has seldom stood in his way. But Prime Minister Tsvangirai will also be at the summit and will press demands for immediate political reforms, both in the security and media sectors and in voter registration, which his Movement for Democratic Change says are essential for fair elections.