27 November 2008
PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda has assented to the three reduced Emolument bills, for the increase of salaries and allowances for the president, ministers, deputy ministers, members of Parliament (MPs) and other constitutional office holders.
Mr Banda said he was happy that he assented his signature to the three bills whose increment he said was small compared to what he refused to assent to earlier.
The bills are the Presidential Emolument (Amendment), Ministerial and Parliamentary offices (Amendment) and Constitutional office (Amendment) Bill.
Mr Banda who was speaking to journalists at Lusaka's International Airport shortly before departure for Nigeria said his decision to sign the bills was merely a fulfillment of what Government normally did every year.
"I am happy that I have signed because it is merely fulfilling what we normally do every year. What happens is that when unionised workers in public service are negotiating with Government on a certain percentage of increment, every person entitled gets it.
"But we did not get an increment in January and we were supposed to get the other one which I refused to assent to and if you look at the figures, they are small increments," he said.
Last week, Parliament passed the three revised bills, scrapped the responsibility allowance for constitutional office holders and drastically reduced special and utility allowances.
The amended bills, which were subjected to a vote electronically, further saw a significant reduction of the utility allowance while the salary still stood at 15 per cent increment.
The three bills, which earlier passed through the House, were sent back after President Banda wrote a letter to the Speaker on November 7, 2008 asking Parliament to reconsider them, as they were costly to Government in their old form.
And on his trip to Nigeria, Mr Banda said he was expected to hold talks with his counterpart President Amaru Musa Yar' Adua on challenges facing the continent and on how Nigeria was managing the agricultural policy as well as what types of crop it was growing.
Mr Banda left aboard the Presidential jet and he was accompanied by Energy Minister Kenneth Konga and Foreign Affairs Minister, Kabinga Pande.
He was seen off by Vice-President George Kunda, Cabinet ministers, deputy ministers, Defence chiefs and Government officials.
The president is expected back home today.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 The Times of Zambia. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
President banda needs to interprete economics into real life. If only a few individuals in this case. constituitional office holders be the only ones to to get good money? Their spending will still remain for their families alone and the satisfaction is minimal. If money is available to a good number of people, a country is likely to improve as many people will buy from markets to be satisfied hence more business, and that way the economy can grow. Lets say if those office holders can only get satisfied with 100 bags of mealie meal, who will buy the… [Read Full Text]