FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti on Thursday shot down demands by MPs and Senators to be bought new vehicles at great expense to the taxpayer.
Biti, speaking at a press conference to announce his ‘2012 Budget Roll out Plan’, ruled out signing off vehicle loans of up to US$30,000 each for the country’s 290 Senators and MPs.
The government recently spent US$20 million buying top-of-the-range cars for ministers, a splurge that fuelled law makers' demands for their own vehicles acquired between 2005 and 2009 to be upgraded.
But Biti insisted on Thursday that the government had discharged its duty to the legislators under the Parliamentary Vehicle Loan Scheme.
“Every MP and Senator has a motor vehicle,” the minister said. “What we owe them are sitting allowances. We are quantifying their sitting allowances and we will pay them. If they want to use that money to buy additional vehicles, it’s up to them.”
MPs and Senators have yet to be paid sitting allowances since the 2008 elections.
Legislators who have accommodation in Harare are entitled to US$50 allowances during every parliamentary sitting, while those from other parts of the country have their accommodation paid for directly by Parliament.
They are also entitled to a US$75 sitting allowance and fuel proportional to distance travelled to Harare from their constituencies.
Biti says he must find the money in his next budget to back-pay the legislators.