The allowance drama in Dodoma will not go quietly, it appears. Members of Parliament have consistently asked for handsome perks and gratuity.
A similar racket rocked the Constituent Assembly (CA) early this week when members asked the government to more than double the Sh300,000 they receive daily in per diem and general allowances.
Some even dared to give the government a 10-day ultimatum to heed their complaints and threatened to quit if their perks are not beefed up.
The CA had to form a six-man committee to consult the government on the complaints and allow the House, which comes together only once in decades, to proceed with its cardinal role.
The uproar reflects the botched approach we used to appoint the CA members. Their groups were clearly better placed to pick representatives who would cut our coat according to the cloth we had. We needed people who would know, in the first place, that they are privileged to be part of the Assembly, for not all 45 million Tanzanians could directly contribute to the writing of the supreme law even if they wished to do so free of charge.
Those select few would realise that there is no price that could ever be placed on their contributions to the writing of the new constitution, given the financial state of the government.
Unlike the Dodoma-based CA members, their CRC counterparts had to zoom around the country to collect views--work that consumed a colossal amount of the taxpayers' money. Some projects had to be stalled to upgrade the National Assembly debate chamber to accommodate the CA members, among other preparations.
The demands of the CA members will require that the government take out a loan. This amounts to adding insult to injury, given that last year's Sh27 trillion national debt will be unbearable.
A similar racket rocked the Constituent Assembly (CA) early this week when members asked the government to more than double the Sh300,000 they receive daily in per diem and general allowances.
Some even dared to give the government a 10-day ultimatum to heed their complaints and threatened to quit if their perks are not beefed up.
The CA had to form a six-man committee to consult the government on the complaints and allow the House, which comes together only once in decades, to proceed with its cardinal role.
The uproar reflects the botched approach we used to appoint the CA members. Their groups were clearly better placed to pick representatives who would cut our coat according to the cloth we had. We needed people who would know, in the first place, that they are privileged to be part of the Assembly, for not all 45 million Tanzanians could directly contribute to the writing of the supreme law even if they wished to do so free of charge.
Those select few would realise that there is no price that could ever be placed on their contributions to the writing of the new constitution, given the financial state of the government.
Unlike the Dodoma-based CA members, their CRC counterparts had to zoom around the country to collect views--work that consumed a colossal amount of the taxpayers' money. Some projects had to be stalled to upgrade the National Assembly debate chamber to accommodate the CA members, among other preparations.
The demands of the CA members will require that the government take out a loan. This amounts to adding insult to injury, given that last year's Sh27 trillion national debt will be unbearable.