Kenyan president and cabinet to take pay cut
Nairobi, 8 Mar - (ANA) - Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced that he and his cabinet will take a pay cut to help bring down the government's wage bill.
President Kenyatta said that he and his deputy William Ruto would take a 20% cut while other ministers would have their pay reduced by 10%.
Foreign trips, he said, would be kept to a minimum. Mr Kenyatta also urged Kenyan MPs, who are among the highest paid in Africa, to accept cuts.
Correspondents say the issue of politicians' pay is a highly sensitive issue in Kenya. Mr Kenyatta said the government was spending close to $4.6bn (£2.7bn) in salaries, leaving only $2.3bn for development. "We need to deal with this monster if we are to develop this nation otherwise sooner or later we will become a nation that only collects taxes to pay ourselves," President Kenyatta said. He was speaking at the end of a cabinet retreat near Mount Kenya that was reviewing progress made one year since he was elected. Mr Kenyatta announced a month after his election that he would make reducing Kenya's ballooning public sector wage bill a priority. He said it was "unsustainable" and weighed on the national budget. (ANA)

FA/ANA/8 March 2014-------------