The Kenyan Government is planning to buy ipads for all the 349 MPs and 67 senators which will cost approximately Sh30 million.
The Parliamentary Service Commission has already advertised for 450 iPads for MPs and senior staff. The current rate in the market for an ipad is between Sh55,000 and Sh70,000, meaning the 450 iPads will cost the PSC between Sh25 million and Sh32 million. Additional funds will be required to fund for Internet connectivity to allow the MPs to download house documents. Reportedly the MPs will get their ipads by the time they get from their recess.
The decision to buy ipads comes a year after the MPs received desktop computers for office use.
PSC Secretary, Jeremiah Nyegenye, says the ipads will help the MPs save on paper and on money.
UK and Uganda have also done the same for all their representatives and by doing so, Kenya will become the second country in East Africa to buy their lawmakers the tablet computer.
Nairobi senator, who has on a few occasions been photographed with a gold-coated iPad, is on record saying that MPs should get iPads… but foot the bill themselves. An MP’s salary should surely be enough to buy the device.
Some of us afford them on a fraction of the salary they get.
I would also not be surprised if majority of them have iPads already, hence the clear waste of public funds.
