Salaries of Members of Parliament (MPs) in Zambia amount to US$ 266 000 per annum. The total amount paid to the MPs is $34 million annually, which is equivalent to US$219 875 a month.
Introduction
But this only tells part of the story: the average salary across constituencies is 60,623 Zambian Kwacha (ZK). Only eight of the 59 constituencies had any salary information listed. Of these eight the lowest average salary was ZK 40 000 or US $2 700 per month. In fact of the eight constituencies with information on their MP’s salaries four had monthly gross wages between US $5000 and US $7000.
As Parliament reopens tomorrow, the MPs who currently receive an average of K50, 000 want their monthly salaries to go up by 20%.
They also want their sitting allowances to increase to K3, 000 per sitting from the current K1, 500.
The People’s Representatives are also demanding that their Car Loans allocation be increased to US$120,000.
They also pushing for increases in other benefits such as Fuel allowances.
Some MPs interviewed defended their demands on account that the cost of living has gone up.
And sources at the National Assembly have confirmed that the MPs have called for a Caucus at which they hope to agree on the next course of action if their demands are not met.
The Caucus will take place at Parliament Building on Tuesday morning before Parliament opens later in the afternoon.
The sources revealed that during last sitting, Petauke Member of Parliament Emmanuel J. Banda was tasked with presenting the petition to Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane which was signed by all opposition and Independent MPs demanding for a higher pay.
“The MPs feel that petition was largely ignored and they believe it never received any attention from the President and now in this sitting, they want to put it as Agenda Item No. 1 and they will not relent until their demands are met,” said the source.
The source said the MPs are planning to conduct a silent protest in Parliament if they do not get their demands addressed.
“They plan to be keeping silent when in the House so that there is no debate whatsoever as a way of making the Executive respond to their demands. What is interesting is that the current Ministers of Finance and Home Affairs (Jack Mwiimbu) were in the forefront pushing for a salary increment in the last Parliament before the August 2021 elections, it would be interesting to see how they will conduct themselves on this matter this time around,” the source said.
Conclusion
If you have complaints about the job, what you should do is having a problem solving session with your supervisor to identify if there is a way of solving that problem without emigrating. In case you are not satisfied with the results, then one option is to go ahead and leave but you should remember that Zambia is a multicultural country, as such it could be possible that while looking for a job you could be discriminated against due to your inability to speak English fluently.
