By Bizna Brand Analyst
Politicians are super wealthy people. While the base pay for most politicians is below a million, each one of them has a net worth of over 10 million shillings. Even a mere MCA makes more money than CEOs of most companies in Kenya. A politician makes more money in a month than a sharp guy in the corporate world makes in a year. Why is that so?
Multiple factors contribute to this picture. It begins with campaigns that have become increasingly costly to run, making it all the more difficult for a person of modest income to run for office. This fact weeds out the people with no wealth and only leaves out those with wealth or those with connections to it. In the end, you don’t get to Parliament if you don’t know how this game of money is played. And once you are there, a person who knows how to make good money either officially or officially, you are presented with even greater off-the-book opportunities to enrich yourself.
Once in office, politicians enjoy access to connections and information they can use to increase their wealth, in ways that are unparalleled in the private sector. And once politicians leave office, their connections allow them to profit even further..
Are politicians rich because only rich people can afford to run for office?
At the same time that county and national assemblies have become more of a millionaires’ club, running a campaign has become increasingly costly. There’s no empirical evidence to suggest the two are related, but any political operative will tell you that not everyone can afford to run a campaign.
In order to set up a campaign, you have to know a lot of wealthy people and wealthy special interests — and that’s something that most of us are not privy to. This means that before you even get to parliament or county office, you will already be set with good connections and lots of big donations that you will use in areas of life
Making money in political office
Once a candidate actually makes it into political office, he’s presented with new opportunities to increase his wealth — some that are unmatched in the corporate world.
Politicians can get away with the type of insider trading that would send an ordinary CEO to jail. They go into hearings and confidential meetings with business interests, understanding new legislation is going to come out next week, and are free to trade on that information.
So, for instance, if a lawmaker learns an upcoming bill will grant a company a large government contract, which could boost that company’s stock, he or she is free to buy that stock ahead of the bill’s public introduction.
House ethics rules dictate that a lawmaker should “never use any information coming to him confidentially in the performance of governmental duties as a means for making a private profit.” House rules, however, are only enforced on an internal basis, and breaches of the rules are often lightly punished, if at all.
It’s not just the politician’Â themselves who exist in this ethical grey space — sometimes an MP’s spouse or family member is in a position to profit from government actions, raising questions about how far to extend conflict of interest rules. AÂ really effective way for a corporation to do influence peddling without actually bribing a member of parliament is hire the spouse or relative. They’ll hire these spouses at exorbitant salaries, and that money really goes directly into the pocket of the member.
Once a member leaves office, even more opportunities for financial gain present themselves. Most politicians take lucrative jobs that earn them lots of money even after leaving office. So to answer the questions,’why are kenyan politicians so rcih? Sometimes it’s the dity deals. Â But mostly, It’s all due to power and connections that the normal mwananchi doesn’t get