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Kenya's MPs, already among the best-paid in the world, will soon be enjoying £1,900 chairs said to be "the costliest in the Commonwealth".
The Houses of Parliament in Nairobi Photo: ALAMY
By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi
4:50PM BST 09 Aug 2012
The 110lb chairs have been installed in the country's lower chamber of parliament at a total cost of more than £650,000, part of a £8 million upgrade to the parliament approved despite the nation's grinding poverty.
An original plan to award the tender to a foreign firm to make the furniture was thrown out when a section of MPs complained that the £3,100-per-chair cost was too high.
Instead, inmates at Kenya's prisons were drafted in to help in their manufacture.
All materials aside from the "very expensive" chair moulds were sourced locally, said David Langat, who manages the prisons' service's industrial manufacturing department.
John Mbadi, an MP on the public investments committee, led the uproar over the original order.
"We couldn't understand how members of parliament would sit on a seat costing about 400,000 Kenyan shillings - about £3,100 - that by any standards could put up some small house for someone," he told the BBC.
"It was just completely ridiculous," he said.
But the cost of the chairs still drew criticism. One Twitter user said that they were still "the costliest in the Commonwealth".
The parliament refurbishment includes expanding the chamber to cope with the 350 MPs to be elected at the next general poll, up from the current 220.
Kenya's elected politicians already take home in excess of £6,000 a month.
The Houses of Parliament in Nairobi Photo: ALAMY
By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi
4:50PM BST 09 Aug 2012
The 110lb chairs have been installed in the country's lower chamber of parliament at a total cost of more than £650,000, part of a £8 million upgrade to the parliament approved despite the nation's grinding poverty.
An original plan to award the tender to a foreign firm to make the furniture was thrown out when a section of MPs complained that the £3,100-per-chair cost was too high.
Instead, inmates at Kenya's prisons were drafted in to help in their manufacture.
All materials aside from the "very expensive" chair moulds were sourced locally, said David Langat, who manages the prisons' service's industrial manufacturing department.
John Mbadi, an MP on the public investments committee, led the uproar over the original order.
"We couldn't understand how members of parliament would sit on a seat costing about 400,000 Kenyan shillings - about £3,100 - that by any standards could put up some small house for someone," he told the BBC.
"It was just completely ridiculous," he said.
But the cost of the chairs still drew criticism. One Twitter user said that they were still "the costliest in the Commonwealth".
The parliament refurbishment includes expanding the chamber to cope with the 350 MPs to be elected at the next general poll, up from the current 220.
Kenya's elected politicians already take home in excess of £6,000 a month.
